Monteverdi is lauded by modern critics as "the most significant Composer in late Renaissance and early Baroque Italy"; "one of the principal composers in the history of Western music"; and, routinely, as the first great opera Composer. These assessments reflect a contemporary perspective, since his music was largely unknown to the composers that followed him for three centuries after his death. It is, as Redlich and others have pointed out, the composers of the late 20th and 21st century that have identified with Monteverdi and sought to make his music a basis for their own. Possibly, as Chew suggests, they are attracted by Monteverdi's reputation as "a Modern, a breaker of rules, against the Ancients, those who deferred to ancient authority" – although the Composer was, essentially, a pragmatist, "showing what can only be described as an opportunistic and eclectic willingness to use whatever lay to hand for the purpose". In a letter dated 16 October 1633 Monteverdi appears to endorse the view of himself as a "modern": "I would rather be moderately praised for the new style than greatly praised for the ordinary". However, Chew, in his final summation, sees the Composer historically as facing both ways, willing to use modern techniques but while at the same time protective of his status as a competent Composer in the stile antico. Thus, says Chew, "his achievement was both retrospective and progressive". Monteverdi represents the late Renaissance era while simultaneously summing up much of the early Baroque. "And in one respect in particular, his achievement was enduring: the effective projection of human emotions in music, in a way adequate for theatre as well as for chamber music."