Reverie

This song is supposed to experience reverie (a pleasant dream) before death.

Hoping for feedback and suggestions as I'm learning and hoping to improve. 

Also for a Q. What is a mode? I hear people speak about them but don't know what they are besides a scale, or mood in a certain key.

The oboe and clarinet work together quite nicely and convey the dreamy atmosphere well. Sometimes, they are really engaged in call and response, which adds depth. The addition of imitation is also a nice touch, though I am not sure they always work well (though I haven’t checked the counterpoint, that’s just an aural perception.)

Modes are a topic that can fill endless pages. Just this as an introduction: Modes were the dominant way of constructing scales before the advent of the Major/Minor-Tonality. They were constructed in times when people where not so much concerned with how to write music in many voices, but how to describe and notate the melodies sung by people in church (but also at other occasions, but the first European books with a method to write down melodies were developed and written by monks.) You get the feeling of those modes if you start on any white key of the keyboard (except the b) and play the octave. Most medieval folk tunes and church chants can be sung using on of those four modes: Dorian (d - d, like d minor with a sharpened sixth), Phrygian (e - e, like e minor, but with a flattened second), Lydian (f - f, like F Major, but with a raised fourth), Mixolydian (g - g, like G Major, but with a flattened seventh.) The b could be flattened in some circumstances, the raising of the seventh to get a leading tone is quite common in modal music. Modes are nowadays used again in jazz and pop, even the mode on b, but in a different musical texture than originally. Dorian, for instance, offers a distinct flavour and is very easy to fit into modern conceptions of harmony.

Wikipedia is btw not the worst place to start a search about modes, the article offers a wealth of information, though I can’t guarantee all is correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)