"Mahler has a special place in my soul," Yuri Temirkanov says. "I don't know why. Don't ask me."

The conductor, who has led the BSO in the first two Mahler symphonies since becoming music director, turns to the Third this week. (He'll add the Fifth next season.)

Temirkanov discovered the music of Mahler while playing the Third Symphony as a member of an orchestra in Russia in the 1950s.

"Mahler had not been played in Russia for 15 years," Temirkanov says, "so it was a complete revelation to me."

To interpret any Mahler work effectively, Temirkanov says, the composer's musical "language" has to be grasped first.

"His pronunciation, so to speak, is very unusual," the conductor says.

Then comes the problem of structure, especially in a gargantuan work like the Third Symphony.

"The first movement is probably the biggest challenge, because it is so big," Temirkanov says. "Mahler wrote that the performance should stop for 10 minutes after the first movement. But if you do a break then and the audience leaves the hall, they will think, psychologically, that the second movement starts as a new symphony when they come back.

"So we will take an intermission after the second movement, which ends softly. The audience will understand that this is not the end, that there will be a continuation. They will come back to start fresh to listen. They won't be exhausted after the great finale - and won't just clap because it is over."