Pleasants studied voice, piano and composition at the Curtis Institute of Music, from which he received an honorary doctorate in 1977.

[2] He was involved in espionage during the Cold War, living with Reinhard Gehlen, a former Nazi general and a top intelligence official for West Germany, to evaluate his "suitability."

The Gehlen Organization, which the former general led, became the forerunner of the postwar West German Federal Intelligence Service.

Following the end of the war, from 1945 to 1955, Pleasants contributed articles on European musical events to The New York Times.

He was survived by his wife, harpsichordist Virginia Pleasants (1911 - 2011), two sisters, Constantia Bowditch of Peterborough, New Hampshire, and Nancy Logue of Clarksville, Tennessee; and a brother, William, of Bethel, Delaware (1911 - 2005).