On a balmy spring morning, after a breakfast of coffee and plain yogurt at a luxury Manhattan hotel, Jaap van Zweden grabbed his bag of conducting batons and scores by Mozart and Gubaidulina and set out for Lincoln Center through the wilds of Central Park. “I love the air, I love the trees,” he said. “Everybody can do whatever they want here. This is freedom, absolute freedom.”Van Zweden, 63, will leave the New York Philharmonic this summer after six seasons as its music director, the shortest tenure of any maestro since Pierre Boulez, the eminent French composer and conductor who led the Philharmonic in the 1970s. But throughout his tenure, van Zweden, an intense, exacting maestro from Amsterdam, faced persistent questions about whether he had the star power, creative drive and strong connection to New York needed to lead the Philharmonic.

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Persons: Jaap van Zweden, Mozart, Gubaidulina, ”, ” Van Zweden, Pierre Boulez, Van Zweden, David Geffen, van Zweden Organizations: Lincoln Center, New York Philharmonic, Philharmonic, David Geffen Hall Locations: Manhattan, Central, French, Amsterdam, New York