The Philadelphia Orchestra was about to play Beethoven in London. Then the Queen died.

With the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday, the last two concerts of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s European tour were canceled, and the ensemble instead found itself performing a live elegiac tribute to the longest-ever-reigning British monarch.

Word of the queen’s death was announced just before audiences arrived in London’s Royal Albert Hall on Thursday evening expecting to hear the Philadelphians in works of Barber, Valerie Coleman, and Beethoven as part of the BBC Proms festival.

In place of those works, at 2:30 Thursday afternoon Philadelphia time, the ensemble walked out on stage and performed “God Save the Queen” and the “Nimrod” movement from Elgar’s Enigma Variations with music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting.

“I was in tears,” said Bill Richards, a longtime Philadelphia Orchestra fan now living in Bradenton, Fla., who specially timed a trip to London to hear the orchestra. “It was very moving.”

The orchestra was in a meeting with BBC officials Thursday when the queen’s death was announced, and rather than cancel the concert outright, the BBC asked whether the orchestra would perform the Elgar and the royal anthem instead.

“It is actually very hard to put into words the emotional impact,” said orchestra president and CEO Matías Tarnopolsky in a call from Royal Albert Hall. “It really felt like the musicians, Yannick, and the audience were a part of history. To have an American orchestra commemorating this huge moment of transition in British history was at once an honor and privilege, and profoundly moving.”

After the orchestra played, someone shouted “Thank you,” the audience applauded, and the orchestra walked off stage, Tarnopolsky said.

The orchestra’s Friday Proms concert — its last scheduled performance of the tour — was also canceled. London was the final stop on the orchestra’s European tour, which began Aug. 25 at the Edinburgh International Festival and continued on with concerts in Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Lucerne, and Paris.