Henry Pleasants (May 12, 1910 – January 4, 2000) was an American
music critic
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...
and
intelligence officer.
Early career
Pleasants studied
voice,
piano and
composition at the
Curtis Institute of Music
The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on full scholarship.
Hi ...
, from which he received an honorary doctorate in 1977. In 1930, at age 19, he became a music critic for the ''
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin'' and was the paper's music editor from 1934 to 1942, when he enlisted in the
U.S. Army.
In 1948–49, he re-entered the military as an army
liaison officer with the
Austrian government
The Government of Austria (german: Bundesregierung der Republik Österreich) is the executive cabinet of the Republic of Austria. It consists of the chancellor, who is the head of government, the vice chancellor and the ministers.
Appointme ...
. He left the army to enter the
Foreign Service in 1950, serving as an intelligence officer in
Munich. From 1950 to 1956, he was the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
station chief in
Bern
german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese
, neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen
, website ...
,
[James H. Critchfield: Partners at Creation: The Men Behind Postwar Germany's Defense and Intelligence Establishments. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003. x + 243 pp, .] and subsequently from 1956 until his retirement from the CIA in 1964, CIA station chief in
Bonn. He was involved in
espionage during the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, 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.
Writing
Following the end of the war, from 1945 to 1955, Pleasants contributed articles on European musical events to ''
The New York Times''. He also wrote regularly for ''
Opera Quarterly'', was London editor for the magazine ''
Stereo Review'', and for 30 years, beginning in 1967, was the London music critic for the ''
International Herald Tribune
The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...
''. In 1964, he retired from the service and settled in
London with his wife, Virginia Pleasants, a
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
ist and
fortepianist
A fortepiano , sometimes referred to as a pianoforte, is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1698 up to the early 19th century. Mo ...
.
His most famous and controversial work was his 1955 publication ''The Agony of Modern Music'', a polemical attack on the direction taken by much of twentieth-century music and an argument in favor of jazz as the "true" master music of the time. The book stated, "Serious music is a dead art. The vein which for 300 years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through its slag pile." He further developed this critique of
contemporary music
Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included serial ...
in ''Death of a Music?: The Decline of the European Tradition and the Rise of Jazz'' (1961) and ''Serious Music and All That Jazz'' (1969).
Henry Pleasants's first and major enthusiasm, however, was the human voice. His ''The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to Our Own Time'' (1966) became a standard reference work. Other books on singers and singing were ''The Great American Popular Singers'', ''Opera in Crisis: Tradition, Present, Future'','' ''and ''The Great Tenor Tragedy: The Last Days of
Adolphe Nourrit'', about the nineteenth-century French singer who committed suicide after his vocal style became outdated. His article "Elvis Presley," reprinted in Simon Firth, ed., ''Popular Music: Ciritical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies'', volume 3 (2004), describes in detail
Elvis Presley's "extraordinary compass and very wide range of vocal color."
Henry Pleasants Lecture Series
The
American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, holds an annual lecture series named in honor of Henry Pleasants,
who lectured and conducted seminars on singing there for 29 years.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/13/news/obituary-henry-pleasants-89-music-critic-dies.html NY Times Jan 13, 2000 OBITUARY : Henry Pleasants, 89, Music Critic, Dies]
Death
On January 4, 2000, Pleasants died aged 89 in a London hospital after suffering a
ruptured aorta. 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).
References
Further reading
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External links
History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pleasant, Henry (music critic)
1910 births
2000 deaths
American music educators
American magazine editors
English columnists
American music critics
English music critics
English musicologists
Opera critics
People of the Central Intelligence Agency
English male non-fiction writers
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American male writers
American male non-fiction writers
20th-century British musicologists
20th-century English male writers