[Kreisler jr]

Whether classical music is exciting or relaxing is like how you listen to or play the Goldberg Variations. Did poor insomniac Mr. Goldberg listen to the music in the hopes of being lulled to sleep? There are some fairly soporific performances that subscribe to that view. Or did he listen for the fun of unravelling each variation?

Goldberg would have been the keyboard player, not the insomniac. The whole story is highly dubious (Goldberg was only about 15 and it seems more likely that one point of the Goldbergs might have been to serve as a virtuoso demonstration piece for Wilhelm Friedemann, most likely all this was secondary, though) but even if there is a relation to the insomnia there is an alternative reading that the music was not to put the count to sleep but to entertain him while he was awake anyway.