If you’re going to kick off a season, you could do worse than have Yefim Bronfman play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Mr. Bronfman is one of the best pianists of our time; the Rachmaninoff Third is one of the world’s favorite concertos. How can you go wrong? Carnegie Hall didn’t, on Thursday night.

Mr. Bronfman appeared with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and its chief conductor, Yuri Temirkanov. The orchestra was in town for a three-concert residence, ending Saturday night. That first concert – Carnegie’s opening gala – offered not only the Rachmaninoff concerto but Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, everybody’s favorite gala piece. That piece still has the power to inspire and amaze, by the way.

Yefim Bronfman can be pretty inspiring and amazing himself. On this occasion, he played a supervirtuosic piece, but he can play anything: You will not hear better Mozart on the piano today, for example. And he brings all his musical values to the Rachmaninoff Third – he does not treat it as a showpiece, as a mere gala romp.

Years ago, I knew a pianist – an elderly Russian woman – who got a faraway look in her eyes when she described how Rachmaninoff played the opening of his Third Concerto: that perfect, eerie D-minor unison. Mr. Bronfman wasn’t bad in the opening either. Throughout the first movement, he showed much of his familiar mastery. Yet his playing was more problematic than it often is – more effortful. Mr. Bronfman is capable of making the most difficult score seem like child’s play. With the New York Philharmonic last year, he played a Bartok Second Concerto that was mind-boggling. That is one of the most difficult concertos in the repertory; from Mr. Bronfman, it was practically a lark.

Also, Mr. Bronfman and Maestro Temirkanov sometimes had trouble getting Rachmaninoff’s first movement to flow: It was hampered by stops and starts. But Mr. Bronfman was never long off track. He gave this music a majesty – almost a morality – that you seldom hear. Again, there was no flash in his playing (or no mere flash). If I may speak crudely – way too crudely – he combines the intelligence of a Beethoven player with the technical ability of a Russian hotshot.

In the second movement, Mr. Bronfman showed how to make a melody come out – simply – amidst all of Rachmaninoff’s swarming notes. When Mr. Bronfman plays, the melody isn’t drowned. In addition, he showed how to get a huge sound without pounding or banging.

The Finale is marked “Alla breve,” and it ought to begin with a snap. But Mr. Bronfman did not quite produce this snap, this necessary crispness. On the whole, the first part of this movement was a little loose, with the pianist and orchestra out of coordination. The pulse was not as firm as it should have been. But the slow, dreamy middle section was beautiful: intimate (not a word ordinarily used about this concerto), truly a reverie. And when the fireworks resumed, Mr. Bronfman was utterly in command, giving a dazzling finish, causing the crowd to roar, as a crowd should for this concerto – and this pianist.

And everyone’s favorite gala symphony? It did not begin promisingly: The orchestra was nowhere near together, and the clarinet – the big solo instrument here – made a decidedly unbeautiful sound. And yet Yuri Temirkanov is a decidedly musical guy: He is inconsistent, and often a little strange, but very musical. He did some wonderful phrasing in Tchaikovsky’s first movement, and he was particularly effective toward the end (the end of the movement): a bit angry, brusque, martial. Effective indeed.

The second movement began with what might be called a growling Russian warmth, and this movement truly moved. I don’t mean to say that it had a fast tempo; it had a kind of internal urgency, and awareness. There was life in these notes. The next movement – the Waltz – had its swirling beauty, and the Finale was adequate. It did not have its maximum effect – in fact, it flirted with the pedestrian. But it was good enough for government work, or, you might say, gala work.

Probably the orchestra’s most beautiful playing of the night came in an encore: Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise,” hauntingly, meltingly, touchingly sung.

And if I could give a couple of encores myself – notes not having to do with the concert proper. At some point – maybe 10 years ago – halls such as Carnegie began presenting male performers with bouquets of flowers. Before, only women – especially singers! – had received flowers. Some men are still kind of perplexed when these things appear. When Mr. Bronfman received his bouquet on Thursday night, he looked almost mortified – and immediately gave the flowers to the first female orchestra member he could see. At the end of the evening, Maestro Temirkanov did the same (different recipient).

How great to see such defiance of modern sensibility and practice!

Also, Carnegie Hall looks golder this season – more gold, brighter, spruced up. But I might lose those shrubs or whatever on the wall at the back of the stage. Surely that was gala only.

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The New York Philharmonic is sprinkling its concerts with Elliott Carter this season – it will play four of the composer’s works, the last of them in June. Mr. Carter is 97, and still working. Only a few years ago, he wrote his first opera, titled “What Next?” And to think that Rossini wrote his last opera at age 37 – and lived on till 76.

On Friday afternoon, Maestro Lorin Maazel began the Philharmonic’s concert with Mr. Carter’s “Holiday Overture,” composed in 1944, after the liberation of Paris. (Mr. Carter revised the piece in 1961.) It is, indeed, a shout of joy – a sustained shout of joy. Though it is a mere 10 minutes, it feels long, to me. Mr. Maazel’s account was firm, compact, accurate. He felt the syncopation beautifully – so much so that you could see it in his body. And the Philharmonic brass section did itself proud.

Following the Carter was a Mozart piano concerto, that in A major, K. 488. The soloist was young Jonathan Biss, whom the gods of the classical-music business – whoever they are – have decided should be a star. And so he is.

He did some peculiar things in this concerto: He put accents where they don’t belong; he showed a tendency to rush; he slurred passages, when they should have been clearly articulated. And yet his virtues are obvious too: He plays with unusual limpidity, and he can produce a beautiful singing line. This was especially helpful in Mozart’s second movement, that slow, F-sharp minor marvel. From Mr. Biss, it was plaintively gorgeous. In the closing movement, he resumed his rushing, and – please note – I do not mean that his tempo was fast. I mean that he rushed within it. And yet this movement was appropriately lively.

As for Mr. Maazel, I have long maintained that he is underrated as a Mozart conductor (and a Haydn conductor). In this concerto, he was graceful, correct, and disciplined. (He couldn’t help it if his soloist was a little wayward.) And his phrasing was superbly refined.

After intermission, he turned to his beloved Strauss, beginning with the tone poem “Tod und Verklarung” (“Death and Transfiguration”). Did Mr. Maazel “manage” it, as is his wont? Oh, yes, he did – but he managed it with great intelligence and musicality, and if he wants to do that, he’s welcome to manage anytime he wants, as far as I’m concerned. The work unfolded as Strauss intended. And it was evident, and touching, that Mr. Maazel – after almost 70 years of conducting – still loves this music as much as he always did.

He ended the concert with the Dance of the Seven Veils, from “Salome.” It had energy both exotic and erotic. Mr. Maazel – if I may – seems to know his way around the sensual. This performance should have come in a brown paper wrapper.

The audience, in its usual Friday style, barely let the maestro get off the stage before ceasing to applaud. A special pity, because he loves to offer encores.

By the way, the program notes published by the Philharmonic included a comment by The New York Sun’s music critic, when “Salome” was first staged at the Met, in 1907. Wrote Mr. W.J. Henderson, “If this be art, then let the music of the future find her mission in sewer, pest-house and brothel.” Oh, it’s gone a lot worse than that, Mr. Henderson.

And a second by the way: In my Philharmonic review a week ago, I mentioned that Mr. Maazel had his horn section stand toward the end of Mahler’s Second Symphony. I said I found this gimmicky and off-putting, while at least one other found it “dramatic.” What I failed to mention is that Mahler instructs the horns to stand in the score itself. This is almost never done, certainly in my experience. But it goes to show you how unpleasable some critics are: They knock you for not being faithful to the composer; they knock you when you are.