Seen it before!
I can’t actually remember Liszt’s markings (which is pretty disgraceful considering I have a lot of the piece memorised!), but he does what a lot of people do in that the section at 7.07 is NOT agitato in the opera. When I took the time to listen to the original material properly, it’s far more melancholy in nature.
Norma is a tricky one. If Bolet had taken it up 15 years earlier I think I would have had my man, but… alas…
Kocsis does perhaps the most “entertaining” and pianistically impressive version I’ve heard, and I appreciate it because of that, but musically it’s not at all the way I want it. Shion Ota felt a bit like that in Hamamatsu as well, and Ran Dank earlier. Lots of other good pianists have played it as well - Lewenthal, Hamelin, Ginzburg, Dichter - but I’m not happy with any of them. The harsh reality is that despite that I love it to the point where I’ve learnt the whole thing myself, I don’t listen to it since I’m not aware of a satisfying recording.
I don’t know, but I think Liszt meant something like that. Just a slight agitation in “voice” and mood so you have a tension to release in the following section, not turning it to a full call for arms as pianists tend to do because of that agitazione marking.
There’s no entirely satisfactory version for me either. My musical preferences in this piece are dictated by the opera which is a top 3 favourite of mine (especially this Covent Garden debut version by Callas which I linked above). As such, I actually think Howard is the best I’ve heard, although I like Kocsis in the arpeggios.
Another Norma (you may have heard this in the member recs!!)… but 8.07 is the relevant segment and I would like to think this is more in the spirit… if in Bb min this time haha.
I would really like to get the Liszt one properly up and going but my solo lh octs aren’t that good in that particular kind of wrist motion. It’s, like da X says above, a piece I care about sufficiently that I want to produce my own version because others range from being tolerable to annoying me!