For its final concert of the season, the New York Collegium, under the direction of Andrew Parrott, had the inspired idea of programming Johann Sebastian Bach’s two audition cantatas, “Jesu nahm zu sich die Zwölfe,” BWV 22 and “Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn,” BWV 23, together with the first cantata Bach performed for his new congregation upon assuming his duties as the cantor and director of music in Leipzig, “Die Elend sollen essen,” BWV 75.

If these works ushered in a period of long-term career stability for the master, the concert Thursday evening in the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer would appear to initiate a period of uncertainty for the Collegium. Rather than offering, as in the past, a season of between four and six concerts, it has said that it will take a “hiatus” from regular programming in 2007–08.

According to Michael Scagnoli, the Collegium’s executive director, this will be a time for the Collegium “to take a step back” and assess. “Strengthening the ensemble’s base of support and forming new strategic relationships” are high on the agenda, he said.

He emphasized that the Collegium would not be idle, noting that “there are lots of recordings we want to do” and that at least one major orchestral-choral concert is likely, along with some smaller events. Still, he acknowledged the “difficulty of maintaining a world-class period-instrument orchestra in New York, despite the abundance of individual talent” — a circumstance with which music lovers are, unfortunately, all too familiar.

The situation unsettlingly recalls the fate of the Classical Band, which was founded by the conductor Trevor Pinnock in 1989 but proved short-lived. Many New Yorkers are content to partake of early music only when international period-instrument ensembles come to town for guest appearances. The Collegium stands for the proposition that the city ought to have such an orchestra of its own.

And Thursday’s concert demonstrated that the Collegium has what it takes to fulfill that need, as it sustained its reputation for performing arresting music at a high level of professionalism. One might have thought Bach would go all out for his audition pieces, with big festive choruses and florid, operatic arias. But in fact his approach seemed almost unpretentious, as he offered the type of pieces that the congregation could be expected to encounter on a regular basis.

But, Bach being Bach, there was much to challenge the listener. He seemed to have fun working into the musical fabric tunes that might be recognized. In Cantata No. 23, he pairs the words “eine feste Burg” (a mighty fortress) with an allusion to Martin Luther’s chorale, and in Cantata No. 24 he quotes the tune of the German Agnus Dei, first hinting at it in the orchestra and finally giving it a full vocal statement.

And, of course, there is the eternal fascination with how Bach will treat the German chorale tune that lies at the heart of a cantata. Each of the three cantatas has the kind of exciting movement in which the chorale phrases, performed by the singers, are broken up by orchestral interludes. And Cantata No. 75 has a fine chorale-based sinfonia that proved an apt outlet for some good, hearty playing. Elsewhere, the instrumentalists proved their ability to play supplely and with nuance. And Stephen Hammer performed yeoman service on the oboe and oboe d’amore.

For the more elaborate choral numbers, Mr. Parrott subscribes to the theory that the music, at least in part, should be sung by one singer to a part. This is not the place to debate the merits of that theory, but here, in addition to the quartet of soloists, there was a backup quartet, which lent support to the full-bodied but less intricate passages. The results were persuasive.

The excellent soloists included Emily Van Evera, a soprano of sparkling clarity, and Kirsten Sollek, whose flexible mezzo has a handsome resonance. The tenor Marc Molomot sang cleanly, if at times a little dryly, and Curtis Streetman’s burly bass filled out his music sumptuously.