Today is the anniversary of the births of two outstanding French composers: Jules Massenet (1842-1912) and Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924).

Massenet’s fluency and emotionally direct style made him the most successful French opera composer of his generation. Fauré was the more progressive of the two. He wrote meticulously-crafted music of great nuance, with a harmonic sense that seemed to yearn for the 20th century. As an administrator, he blew the dust off the Paris Conservatory and ushered in an era of unprecedented reform.

Here are two absorbing interpretations of music by these very different French masters.

Joan Sutherland sings a selection from Massenet’s medieval romance “Esclarmonde”:

Germaine Thyssens-Valentin, a Fauré pupil, plays his Nocturne No. 6 in D-flat:

Joyeux anniversaire, mes amis!

PHOTOS: Fauré (left) and Massenet en plein air