Twenty years later, this Saturday Night Live routine still rings true. Experience has taught me that very few products can do two things equally well. Remember those jaunty amphibicars that sported propellers on their rear decks, letting you drive them straight into the lake after a bracing spin along the back roads? Unfortunately, they could neither corner well nor handle even the slightest chop. As for Swiss Army Knives, well, I guess it's better to have a mediocre screwdriver/awl/magnifying glass/tweezers with you than none at all. And I've never seen a Veg-O-Matic in a professional kitchen, just mandolines, food processors, and knives.

This is infuriating. Along comes the performance of Scheherazade that we've been waiting for, and the powers that be at London Records decide, God knows why, to bestow upon it the dubious blessing of Phase 4 recording. The sound is positively vast and cavernous, the bass booms, the highs scream, the harp sounds like it's 10' tall, and instruments wander back and forth across the stereo stage as if nobody had thought to tell the musicians where to sit.

Which does not make any of the four works on her new two-CDs-for-the-price-of-one set from Deutsche Grammophon, Hommage à Penderecki, any easier to wrap your arms around on first hearing.