Wanda Giorgina Toscanini Horowitz (December 7, 1907, Milan, Italy, – August 21, 1998) was the daughter of the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the wife of pianist Vladimir Horowitz.[1]
As a child, Wanda studied piano and voice. She never pursued a professional music career, fearing she could never live up to her father's exacting standards. Despite this, she was one of the few people who was willing to stand up to her father. When Arturo Toscanini refused to speak with her sister, Wally, following her affair with a married man, it was Wanda who confronted her father and insisted he reestablish contact.[2] She was equally direct with her husband, whom she married in 1933. In the 1950s, when Horowitz was playing a Schubert sonata, she complained of the work's length, which persuaded the pianist to forgo a repeat.[2] She pointedly declined to accompany her husband for much of his 1983 tour, when he refused to accept that medications were adversely affecting his playing.[3]