Colin Davis is recording the Sibelius symphonies in concert at the Barbican for the London Symphony Orchestra's record label. When the cycle is complete next year, it will be Davis's third on disc.

Davis does not view Sibelius as a modernist, nor as part of some alternative 20th-century tradition; in many respects, he treats him more like a remnant from the 19th century. What gives his performance credibility is his grip on the music's structure, the way he identifies his long-range objectives in every movement.

In the Fifth, the wing beats of the finale's great theme were in his sights from the opening, and everything in between just emerged inevitably, carried along by the LSO's faultless playing. The symphony was the climax of a curiously structured concert. The first half was given over to Schumann's Piano Concerto, in which the soloist was Radu Lupu, whose London performances are something of an occasion.

Here he was in typically ruminative mood, achieving a natural rapport with the orchestra in the work's Intermezzo, each phrase unforced and naturally conversational, matching Davis's control of detail with his own contributions to the opening movement. The finale could have been more extrovert, but the solo playing was still special.

There was another concertante work of sorts immediately before the symphony, when Hilary Hahn played The Lark Ascending, though the softness of the LSO's strings was more impressive than her detached ruminations. Having the long poem by George Meredith that inspired Vaughan Williams' romance read by Suzanne Bertish before the performance, though, seemed a bit of an extravagance.