“Here, the melodies flutter about so abundantly, you have to be careful not to step on one by accident,” Brahms said of Pörtschach am Wörthersee. During one of his summers there, he composed his Violin Concerto, a work brimming with natural beauty. Beautiful in an utterly bittersweet way, however, are the rolling hills Vaughan Williams paints next in his Pastoral Symphony—the desolate battlefield left behind after the First World War.