Since 1991, the orchestra has performed the works of Beethoven, Bizet, Prokofiev, Lutosławski, Weber, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Bernstein, Wagner, Brahms, Henze and more.
During his time with the London Sinfonietta he collaborated with a variety of composers, including Boulez, Stockhausen, Birtwistle, Henze, Maxwell Davies, Goehr and Berio.
They also collaborated on two librettos for Henze, Elegy for Young Lovers (1961) and The Bassarids (1966), and on the libretto of Love's Labour's Lost (based on Shakespeare's play) for Nicolas Nabokov (1973).
The work was premièred at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin in September 1971 with William Pearson as the soloist and the chamber ensemble consisting of the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the Fires of London along with the percussionist Stomu Yamash'ta under Henze's direction.
According to Paul Henze, Ras Wolde Selassie was the first ruler of this period to have close contact with Europeans, hosting three British diplomats, George Annesley, Viscount Valentia, his secretary Henry Salt, and Pearce.
the United States (Harold Attridge, Kelley Coblentz Bautch, Gabriele Boccaccini, Darrell Bock, Daniel Boyarin, Silviu Bunta, Calum Carmichael, James H. Charlesworth, J. Harold Ellens, Steven Fraade, Charles A. Gieschen, Matthias Henze, John R. Levison, Jared Ludlow, Eric Mason, Andrei A. Orlov, Lawrence Schiffman, David W. Suter)
The Central Intelligence Agency's Ankara bureau chief at the time, Paul B. Henze, received a call from the White House Situation Room saying "Paul, your guys have done it", while President Jimmy Carter was watching Fiddler on the Roof at the Kennedy Center.
German composer Hans Werner Henze has used Bottom twice as an inspiration: in the second sonata which comprises his Royal Winter Music and in his Eighth Symphony.
As part of the European Cultural Capital festivities of Essen, he led the new productions of Henze's Elegie für junge Liebende and a concert version of Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles.
The genre declined after World War II, perhaps with the advent of television, although composers such as Dallapiccola, Pizzetti, Rota, Henze, Zimmermann, Maderna and Rasmussen continued to compose for the radio, as do 21st-century composers such as the Estonian Jüri Reinvere, Amy Kohn in America and Robert Saxton in Britain.