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. 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. At a Toscanini concert, she spotted the critic Virgil Thomson dozing during the performance. Knowing that Thomson frequently gave her father negative reviews, she approached him and announced, “I am Wanda Toscanini Horowitz, and I saw you sleep from the first note to the last. I hope you enjoyed the performance.” Marriage to Vladimir Horowitz 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. 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. Wanda and Horowitz separated in 1948. Byron Janis, one of Horowitz's students, has written that he and Wanda were involved in a brief affair during this period. Horowitz and Wanda reconciled in 1951. In the aftermath of Horowitz’s 1953 nervous breakdown, she remained by his side. While she took pride in being married to the legendary virtuoso, she also confided that it was, at times “a cross to bear.” However, others have implied that Wanda's stern personality, in part, led to Horowitz's breakdown. Arthur Rubinstein stated that "Wanda was a very hard woman—hard as stone, and this was undoubtedly a factor that led to Volodya's collapse." Wanda frequently referred to their only child, daughter Sonia (1934–1975), stating that Sonia's death was the greatest agony a mother could bear. More than a decade after Sonia's death, she was observed bursting into tears at the mention of Sonia's name. Despite being raised Catholic, Wanda was opposed to the Catholic Church’s positions on many issues including birth control. Like her husband, Wanda held firmly liberal political views. She once referred to Ronald Reagan as “a second-rate