Thank you for responding.
Is simply being conscious of tension enough to dissipate it over time?
I became acquainted with this piece from the Gilels recording on DG. He played this part with incredible speed (though still in the Allegro range) and evenness. I do notice that the top voice comes out more in his rendition.
Maybe the trick to alleviate tightness it to play it more lightly overall and place more emphasis on the top notes. I notice that I still feel some tightness in the muscles between my thumb and forefinger & between my forefinger and middle finger the next day.
Though maybe it's exhaustion rather than tightness because I hadn't been playing for a while before attempting to work on this piece.
Anyhow..
I don't think its enough to be conscious of it for it to dissipate on its own, if that's what you mean. But I think the first step to preventing tension is to notice a) when you tense up, and b) where there is chronic tension you previously were unaware of. In either of these cases it's difficult to do anything about the tension if you don't even know it's there.
When you do notice yourself tensing up, you have a chance to try to do whatever you did again, while trying to do it without tightening up. You sort of practise saying "no" to the thing you habitually do. Tensing up is an act of doing a thing, not tensing up is an act of not doing that thing, if that makes any sense.
There are many tricks that can alleviate tightness, so if you find something that works for you, I'd say go for it. For me personally, I have noticed that tips & tricks rarely help tackling the fundamental problem, which is why I focus more on being conscious of tension and learning how to relax your body better regardless of what you do.