To hear Sibelius symphonies played by an exceptional orchestra under a great conductor is pretty much a guarantee of new insights. That is unquestionably what we are getting in Simon Rattle’s three-night chronological survey in London this week with the Berliner Philharmoniker. And in this second concert, which bracketed the violin concerto with the third and fourth symphonies, they delivered plenty more.

As reviews of the first concert on Tuesday noted, Rattle’s Sibelius seems to have become more spacious with the years. This time there were few of the viscerally ebullient speed changes that conductors from Robert Kajanus to the 1980s Rattle brought to the coltishness of the third symphony. Instead, although Rattle conducted throughout with plenty of urgency, it felt as if the concentration was now more on symphonic structure and on the evolution of the Sibelius orchestral sound, much sparer in the third than in the first two symphonies, and reaching wonderfully austere new heights in the fourth, ultimate music of the north.

In some respects the violin concerto felt like an interloper at the midpoint of this didactic exploration of the symphonies. But this would have been a short concert without it, and few violinists have more experience to bring to the Sibelius concerto than Leonidas Kavakos. His range of expression and the general daring of his account were compelling, and needed to be matched by Rattle’s alert accompaniment. Here, at least, Greek and German harmony ruled.

Yet it is the Berlin orchestra that is the cynosure of these concerts. Whether it is the richness of their string tone, the exceptional eloquence of their wind principals or simply the spacious texture of their ensemble, whose quietness has to be heard to be believed, the Berliners command an orchestral palette that few others can match, even the best. Whether that sound equips them to sing with an authentic Sibelian voice remains for me a nagging question, but these are unmissable concerts.