Restless Yearning By the time Frédéric Chopin had made Paris his permanent place of residence, if not before, yearning was the central theme in his oeuvre. This romantic composer was obsessed with yearning for death, for redemption from his sufferings, for peace and happiness, for God, and for the "ideal," as he himself termed it. A tracing of the path of the genial and tragic musical personality that was Chopin and an effort to probe the secret of the fascinating beauty and captivating melancholy of his music.