The role of Wanda Horowitz in Vladimir Horowitz's career

I get the impression she was a tough woman who ran their household, and Vladimir's career, with an iron first.

Do you think her role was a good one or a bad one? I get the impression her's was the healthy push that is sometimes needed for one to get things done and to rise to the occasion.

When your name is Wanda Toscanini Horowitz you've got the Toscanini iron fist on your left hand and the Horowitz iron fist on the right. I think she learned early on how to use those assets to get what she wanted from the music world if it would further her husband's career.

It's an interesting question, and IMO impossible to answer. (Far harder than why he played that scale in the Chopin Polonaise the way he did.) My knee jerk answer is that she was bad for him, because I don't like dour demeanors and think they're usually bad for anything and anybody. But I can earily imagine how it was otherwise, including because maybe the real total Wanda was quite different than what we read about and see in those videos.