Unicorn's mid-price Souvenir series is usually devoted to reissues, but here is a fine new recording of Grieg's exquisite piano miniatures. Only in the early Op. 12 set is the composer's quality of invention less than at a high level, and only here does Eva Knardahl on BIS/Conifer challenge the British pianist. In the very first item, ''Arietta'' she plays at a more flowing tempo than Katin, who perhaps seeks to find more in the piece than it contains. And throughout Book 1 Knardahl's soft-grained, alert playing gives much pleasure. In these pieces Katin's approach is a shade more deliberate, a little more plain.
It is in Book 2 that Katin's qualities emerge more surely, and as the music becomes more powerfully evocative so is he stimulated to provide playing of considerable insight and great sensitivity. And here Knardahl's affable, but more superficial interpretations begin to seem somewhat lacking. Katin responds much more acutely to the character of each piece. ''Berceuse'' is played with much tenderness, for instance, and there is a delicate yet vivacious quality in ''Halling''. In Book 3 it is interesting to find that Katin's playing of ''Schmetterling'' and ''An den Fruhling'' is very similar to that of the composer himself in his 1903 G&T recordings. This is not such an absurd comparison as it may seem since Grieg's recordings, even with their primitive sound, tell us much about how he liked his piano pieces to be played.
By the time we reach Books 3 and 4 it is clear that Katin's acutely sensitive, searching interpretations are a mile ahead of Knardahl's pleasant but somewhat superficial performances. I only felt at odds with Katin in Book 4's ''Halling'', which struck me as too dry and forceful. Elsewhere his playing offers rich rewards. Daniel Adni's deleted 1974 LP set on EMI of the Lyric Pieces would offer serious competition to this new Unicorn enterprise, and I hope that his poetic and atmospheric performances will soon see the light of day on CD. But I look forward eagerly to further volumes in the Unicorn series. Katin is recorded in clear, truthful sound, which very occasionally becomes slightly metallic in louder passages.[C32B001630]'