Today, as I cleaned—rubber-gloved hands scrubbing soap scum off the bathroom sink—I listened to recordings of the BBC's Desert Island Discs.

When host Kirsty Young asked radio critic Gillian Reynolds which of eight discs she would rush to save from the waves, Reynolds chose the third movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1. Her reason, she said, stemmed from something Nicholas Kenyon, a former controller for BBC Radio 3, had said to her once.

— When interviewing him, she had asked: "Why does music matter?"

— And he had replied: "Because there has to be another way of saying things without words."

"And that's what Beethoven does," declared Reynolds to Young.

So I listened to the third movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1, the version performed by British-born classical pianist, composer and writer Stephen Hough, as Reynolds had selected. And I asked myself, "What was Beethoven saying without words in this piece?" I'm not certain what he was saying, but what I was hearing was this: "Let's frolic. Let's celebrate. Let's hurry."

Kenyon's statement reminded me of a beautiful and much more serene piano piece than the Beethoven composition, one by record producer and composer David Foster. In 2020, Foster released an album called Eleven Words. The name of each instrumental track is a single word, such as Serenity and Victorious. My favourite is the record called Love. The opening 30 seconds feel like falling in love. The next two minutes feel like making a life together, settling into a groove, experiencing highs amongst some lows. The final 30 seconds feel like coming to an end, facing loss and even loneliness, but remaining forever grateful for the memories.

The older I get, the more comfort I take from words, music and art. If Helena Bonham Carter is right, "everything in life is art."

Today, I wasn't kneading dough. I was saying "I love you" to my family without words.