What is the internal harmony of this Liszt melody?

Question

This is an exercise taken out of Walter Piston’s Harmony (4th ed). Let me know how you would change my progression. Thanks!

Answer 1

As I've already mentioned this passage need more information about the harmonic accompaniment - otherwise the melody behind this chromatic passage is ambiguous and it can be reduced to different chords and so this reduction may lead to different solutions.

For this reason I have downvoted the question.

I had to find myself the title and the source of Liszt's Faust Symphony.

Now with this sheet music (arr. for Piano solo) we can analyse the chord progression.

1. Bdim7 with Eb = 4th suspension = VII°(dim7sus4) 2nd inversion
2. Bdim7 over Cm (VII°7 suspended over the tonic (i6 = 1st inversion of Cm)
3. Dm7b5 (ii7b5) Fm6 (1st inversion of ii7b5)
4. Bdim7 over Cm (with omitted 3rd, we could also say: VIIdim7 suspension or C = pedal note

This is the internal harmony. But if you are looking for the internal melody:

1. The most important tone is D, the skeleton would be (do)-ti-si (Eb,D,B)
2. ti--la--
3. re--mi-ti
4. re--do--

The accidentals of this piano reduction are identical with the 1st. violin part, but in my concern the chromatic progression would be clearer if all descending chromatic appoggiaturas and passing tones would have been notated by the equivalent flat notes.