Peter Ilich Tschaikowsky—A Psychological Sketch: Paul C. Squires. Psa. Rev., XXVIII, 1941, pp. 455–465.

The author gives a case history of Peter Ilich Tschaikowsky, in whom he finds hysterical and paranoid mechanisms. He diagnoses him as a psychopathic homosexual, with periods of severe depression, general weakness and conversion symptoms. Tschaikowsky's attempt to marry is a complete failure and leads to a severe nervous crisis, from which he recovers only very gradually. The author classifies him as 'the greatest psychologist among musicians … the archintrospectionist who dares to tell all through the enchanted avenue of the ear'. He goes on to say, 'Tschaikowsky's music is the very essence of subjectivity; it is concentrated upon the microcosm—if that is what we care to call the Self. No other music, not even Schumann's excels his in respect to the quality that may best be called psychologic. It is unsurpassed in the portrayal of the sinister mysteries of Mind. It lives and moves in the realm of lost souls, of those without hope.'

This and other statements of the author remain within superficial generalities. The psychoanalyst is disappointed, since no deeper psychological connections are traced in the paper.