For me, the circus is all about music and how it accompanies the acts that are ongoing. The last of the big circuses went belly-up a few years ago (a damned shame, but pretty much unavoidable), but that doesn't mean the music dies with it.
I am a member of Windjammers Unlimited, a collection of musicians who enjoy playing the circus music of old. (Most of the members are pretty damned old, I might add - I'm probably a young pup at age 62.)
Anyway, I'm in the middle of the summer meet of Windjammers Unlimited, this time in the Pittsburgh, PA area.
It's nonstop music and definitely a chop-buster, but hey -- you would not believe what the Windjammers of old did on a regular basis. Chops of steel. Circus arrives in town, unlimbers and does a parade. Sets up the Big Top and other stuff, and it's go, go, go right on up till it's time to tear it all down again and move to the next venue. That's the way it was in the 1920s and 1930s.
Back when recorded music was pretty much a waste of time.
Now we've got auto-tune.
Grrrrrrrrr.......
https://www.circusmusic.org/