Berlin Philharmonic: the world's best orchestra

Curling up like a wisp of smoke before a blaze, violinist Guy Braunstein marked the arrival of the Berlin Philharmonic in London with a ghostly rustle as the tip of his bow oscillated across a single string. Only a dog or those under 16 could hope to hear anything softer. One by one three other Berliner string principals joined in, each with a two-bar semiquaver skitter before soaring, full strength, into Schubert's "Quartettsatz", a single movement of a quartet which in the composer's short life was never completed.

This was the first, unexpectedly intimate sound of the world's best orchestra – can we drop the mingy "arguably"? – as it began a four-concert sell-out UK residency, imaginatively shared between the Barbican and the Southbank. The first encounter for everyone, that is, apart from those who attended a family concert earlier the same day given by the extrovert cello section, who let their hair down, which they quite regularly do, with jazz and show tunes.

With bold ingenuity, this opening chamber concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall acted as a microcosm of the concerts to come, showcasing a handful of members of an orchestra in which every player has the virtuosity and, more tellingly and as required, the attitude of a soloist. The mix of repertoire from the Austro-German canon, meat and drink to this ensemble, gave context to the symphonies by Mahler and Schubert ahead. Schoenberg, in voluptuous expressionist mode, acted as kernel. His string quartet No 2, with soprano Anna Prohaska a radiant, Klimt-like soloist, had all the authority and shared understanding of players who, though not a regular chamber group, know each other well.

The first glimpse we had of Sir Simon Rattle himself, chief conductor and artistic director since 2002 and one reason for a new kind of proprietorial British enthusiasm for the Berlin Philharmonic, was when he conducted the final work at the QEH, Schoenberg's voluptuous Chamber Symphony No 1 (1906). It would be perverse to say this was one of the highlights of the residency. There were too many others. But the chance to hear figures such as ex-CBSO oboist Jonathan Kelly and his colleague Andreas Wittmann, Andreas Blau (flute) and Daniele Damiano (bassoon) in a small ensemble was thrilling and rewarding.

But the spotlight fell on viola player Amihai Grosz (b 1979), a founding member of the Jerusalem Quartet who only joined the Berlin Phil as section principal six months ago. His bowing arm has near mechanical energy while his resonant tone flickers between coarse and silken, glabrous and scabrous. He remained a potent force throughout the week, visibly and audibly, wild in attack, alert in silence. You could think he was single-handedly power-driving the orchestra except that, in truth, he is only giving the same fierce commitment shown by every one of these players.

With so many thousands of words and hundreds of ecstatic adjectives applied to the Berlin Philharmonic this week, we still need to ask that basic question: what's its secret? Even Rattle admits finding it hard to say. Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, he admitted "it's a mystery", adding that orchestras may change their clothes – the personnel – but the body remains the same. Rattle feels he is conducting "Karajan's orchestra" – maestro at the helm for 35 years from 1954 to 1989, selling some 200 million discs and consolidating a streamlined, rhythmically propellant sound. Claudio Abbado followed, ushering in a new transparency and, as fans usually sum it up, "love" in his approach.

Rattle, to precis a tendency, combines both styles, attending to detail with laser precision, while also reaching out for that gleaming Karajan quality. Yet much has changed since Rattle arrived. By cautious degrees he has consolidated his relationship with this highly independent group. The average age has dropped to a youthful 38 years. It is more international than ever. With the exception of the interwar years, it has never been solely German but now 50 of the 128 members are foreign, with 20 nations (including three Britons) represented. It still has a mere 17 women, including the first, Swiss violinist Madeleine Carruzzo who joined in 1982, and also the phenomenal horn player Sarah Willis. No other orchestra drives you to check your programme constantly to try to identify who, tonight, is making that magical clarinet or trumpet or trombone sound.

The orchestra has three concertmasters, or leaders. The exemplary quality of the strings, the heart of an orchestra but always the hardest part to get right, is their responsibility. Each brings his own spark and style to the ensemble, at once adding and blending. Daniel Stabrawa, appointed in the Karajan era, led the Haydn and Schubert programme with a sense of Teutonic elegance, though in fact he is Polish. Braunstein, who joined in 2000, genial and unperturbable, plays in a manner so relaxed he sits with his ankles crossed, revealing the soles of his shiny patent shoes. It's as if he has adopted the "at ease" rather than "to attention" playing position, yet his playing is peerless. The third concertmaster is the nimble Daishin Kashimoto from Japan, who came in 2009. He was outstanding in the demonic scordatura solo – in which the violin is tuned a tone higher – in Mahler's fourth.

Rattle used the word "fierce" to suggest his players' unifying quality. The Scottish horn-player Fergus McWilliam, in a pre-concert talk about his quarter century in the orchestra, offers three others: passionate, visceral and sensual. There is no inhibition, and no awaiting instruction. They move with a physicality that would be distracting were it not for the fact, as here, that they all do it. Rattle compares the Berlin Phil to "a flock of birds". Make your own analogy: a wheat field in high wind, maybe, or anything to suggest the many who, valued individually, act as one.

Rather than plod through each remarkable concert, widely commented on elsewhere, I will pick highlights. Mahler's fourth, usually regarded as nearly classical in scale and reach, expanded to achieve tragic grandeur in Monday's impeccable performance. On Tuesday horn principal Stefan Dohr, another of the week's heroes, was a beguiling soloist in Toshio Hosokawa's horn concerto (UK premiere). With almost tactile aural variety, it expresses the journey of a lotus flower pushing up through mud and water to explode into blossom. How refreshing to hear Japanese wind bells and vibraphone glistening exotically in between Haydn and Schubert, but the moments of chaos also left an impact.

So much for the musicians. Rattle, too, has his own singular facial and gestural repertoire. Baton in his right hand, variously slicing, slashing, flicking, flipping, mincing, he employs his left as moderator, calming, urging, silencing. His cajoling expressions range from seraphic to maniacal, both in heavy demand for the mammoth journey of Mahler's third symphony, in the final concert.

Despite a stupendous performance, with glorious contributions from contralto Nathalie Stutzmann and the ladies of the LSO Chorus, BBC Singers and boys of Eltham college, it left Mahlerians divided. Had Rattle conveyed the full weight of this gargantuan, six-movement Nietzschean exploration of the ontological all? Has anyone? I'm still waiting – send your suggestions or therapies – though I revel in the work's ear-shattering invention.

Nothing could beat Schubert's own huge symphonic outpouring, the "Great" C major, No 9, performed on Tuesday. Too often stolid and heavy, here it was airborne, with rhythmic muscularity and exhilarating finesse. It solved one of life's less pressing problems. I've never known what to request in the "condemned man's final feast" game. The Berlin Philharmonic playing the "Great" C major would do nicely, thank you.