When Yuri Temirkanov brings the St. Petersburg Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall for three concerts beginning October 30, he will bring with him a piece of Russia’s musical heritage. With the death of Mstislav Rostropovich last spring, Mr. Temirkanov is the foremost Russian conductor to have a career reaching far back into Russia’s postwar musical life.

“Oistrakh, Gilels, Kogan, and Richter,” Mr. Temirkanov mentioned the names wistfully when we met last summer. “They were such personalities and musicians — to know and work with people like them really shapes you as a musician and as a human being. I also knew Shostakovich well and worked with him, though he was not a close friend. These were geniuses,” he said, “and we were insects.” Clearly, Mr. Temirkanov has risen far above insect status, but the comment reflects his distaste for self-promotion.

We met at the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Great Hall following a rehearsal, of which I heard part. I had hoped to hear more, but it ended on time with stopwatch precision. “I learned that in America,” Mr. Temirkanov said wryly. He then changed into sport coat and tie for the interview, thereby reinforcing his courtly image. Mr. Temirkanov’s American experience is indeed extensive. He has guest-conducted all the country’s principal orchestras and last year finished a six-year stint as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

“America has more first-class orchestras than Russia,” he noted. “But every orchestra has problems.”

The biggest problems Mr. Temirkanov faced with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, which he has led since 1988, came with the fall of communism. He worked frantically to keep the orchestra together and secure money for the musicians. “We managed to keep our image,” he said. “Some great orchestras, like Philadelphia, keep their own profile, which doesn’t depend on the music director. There are quite a few orchestras like that.”

Mr. Temirkanov’s association with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, formerly known as the Leningrad Philarmonic, goes back to 1967 when he was invited to join the orchestra as assistant conductor to the great Yevgeny Mravinsky, a stern taskmaster in the martinet tradition. “As students, we went to all the rehearsals, though they weren’t supposed to let us in. Mravinsky was a great legend,” Mr. Temirkanov said without elaborating. The two are reputed not to have been close, possibly because Mravinsky felt threatened by his younger colleague’s talent. Mr. Temirkanov went on to serve as conductor of the St. Petersburg Symphony, the city’s “second” orchestra, before becoming artistic director of the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Theater in 1976. When Mravinsky died in 1988, Mr. Temirkanov was his logical successor.

At the Kirov, Mr. Temirkanov not only conducted operas but staged Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and “The Queen of Spades” in admired productions that long remained in the repertoire. Next spring he returns to opera for a new “Carmen” at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. “The production will be modern but not terribly modern — not the kind that kills the music because it has nothing to do with music,” he said.

In Baltimore, Mr. Temirkanov was sometimes criticized for favoring a narrow repertoire that neglected new music. “I am at the age where I can say what I think. I doubt that many conductors like to do it,” he said of commissioning new music, “but the best have to do it. American orchestras have resident composers and pay them money. But music that does not touch the soul, the heart, what’s inside you — even if it’s brilliant, professionally orchestrated, and has good ideas — is not, strictly speaking, music.”

Yet Mr. Temirkanov is quick to point out his positive experiences with new scores, citing in particular Rodion Shchedrin’s opera “Dead Souls,” produced at the Bolshoi in 1976. “They were used to doing operas like ‘Prince Igor,’ and when I came with the score, they said it was impossible to sing or play. But in the end it was great. It’s not that good composers don’t exist.”

Each of the Carnegie concerts will have a Prokofiev work, but the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann will be heard as well. Mr. Temirkanov recognizes that people — including concert presenters — expect him to perform Russian music. “It’s part of the business of culture — the French play French music, and so forth. People don’t know or understand that Karajan conducted Tchaikovsky better than 90 percent of Russian conductors, or that Richter’s Beethoven was better than that of most Europeans’. In Baltimore, I didn’t do any Russian repertoire my first year.”

Another composer to be heard is the little-known Russian Georgy Sviridov (1915–98).

“The problem and tragedy of Sviridov,” Mr. Temirkanov explained, “is that he was born 100 years too late. The language of his work was not acceptable after Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Berg. Why do we still play him? Because he was a great composer.”