Wow. When Russia’s St. Petersburg Philharmonic comes to town April 2 for a University Musical Society concert at Hill Auditorium, they’re not fooling around. The distinguished orchestra, under the baton of longtime Maestro Yuri Temirkanov, is heading straight for the lush stuff, delivered in a two course banquet: Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in c minor, Op. 18, followed by Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite “Scheherazade,” Op. 35. “Scheherazade” takes its cues from “The Arabian Nights;” the clever and beautiful Scheherazade and the sultan she entertains for 1,001 nights with her tales — earning herself a reprieve from death along the way — are both characters in Rimsky-Korsakov’s four-movement score. He finished the piece, an exotic and color-filled “Oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders,” in 1888.

It wasn’t too many years later, 1901, that Rachmaninoff completed his Piano Concerto No. 2. The date makes it a 20th century work — but just barely. “Almost 20th century” is how pianist Nikolai Lugansky, Saturday’s soloist in the concerto, put it in a conversation from Frankfurt a few weeks back. “The most important thing in the concerto is the melodic genius and richness of Rachmaninoff,” said Lugansky, who makes his UMS debut with this concert.

Those qualities, he added, are what make this “quite rare music go immediately to the hearts of the listeners from the first time.”

Rachmaninoff declared the third piano concerto his favorite, but Lugansky said he loves all the Rachmaninoff piano concertos equally.

“I could never answer which I like more,” he said, “but I have a special story for every one of them.”

The story for the second concerto is that it was the first Rachmaninoff concerto Lugansky played - at age 14 or 15, the 38-year-old pianist recalled.

“Since then I have played it many times,” he said, “almost every season. I am never tired of this music, its strong feelings are never too much.”

He said the music’s instant appeal — “it works immediately, the first time a person hears it” — is perhaps one reason critics didn’t like Rachmaninoff: “This music doesn’t need explanation. You don’t need too many words about it. Intellectuals didn’t believe it is possible to create such music in the 20th century.”

Lugansky, a winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, was a longtime student and later a duet partner of the late, great Russian pianist and pedagogue Tatiana Nicolaeva.

“It was a privilege to study with her and an honor to play with her,” Lugansky said. “She was a remarkable woman. She was always hungry for the music; she doesn’t understand how it is possible to be tired of the music. She always wanted to listen to the new music, the new pianists, and she remembered everybody who played an exam at the conservatory.”

I asked Lugansky if he likes to listen to the “old” pianists — specifically, Rachmaninoff.

“Of course, Rachmaninoff as a pianist was the best of all time,” he responded. “I would say that I enjoy listening to his recordings — I enjoy any great pianist. But it is difficult to say if it influences somehow how I play. When I listen to the music, I am a listener. They are two different things. When I play, I have to forget other things. I try not to reflect, not to analyze. I am in the power of the music. I communicate with the score and with the audience, but I never compare interpretations. When I listen, I am one of millions of listeners.

“Rachmaninoff’s interpretation of the second concerto is very fast, very straightforward, very strict. Only he, in such a strict tempo, could give a full melodic line, such expressiveness. Someone else would sound ‘leggiero’ — his full sound is impossible for others. I enjoy it a lot, but I don’t think it somehow helps me to play. I just love to listen to it, though.”

Rachmaninoff on playing the second piano concerto:

Lugansky gives a guided tour of the second piano concerto: