Hey guys! A few basics (I’m sure you may already know) re: tempo changes, dynamics, expressive playing, and conductor-led, composer-dictated rendition vs. the performer's art of interpretation…
Considering that Early Music —pre-Mozart— involved relatively smaller ensembles, the chef/ conductor might well have been one of the ensemble performers. Also, importantly, in those times larger venues didn’t exist strictly for the purposes of musical performance. Generally speaking, as audiences gradually became larger, so did the venues …and so newer instruments developed to suit the setting.
Professional chapel & court musicians of the time were quite skilled in harmony, interpretation, and instrumental technique. Perhaps it’s too easy to assume lots about music was simpler, less refined, or even less touching than in later periods. My advice is to (try to) not hold an opinion, remain open, & check it out.
J.S. Bach’s favorite instrument was the intimate clavichord. Maybe you didn’t know that, unlike the harpsichord/“clavecin” (which plucks the string & then must reset itself before “striking” again), the clavichord’s keys cause a metal “tine” to contact the string for as long as the key is depressed, so it’s (a) capable of vibrato! by wiggling one’s finger on the key, and (b) capable of a range of dynamics by striking the keys harder or softer. In spite of it’s flexibility, it’s such a quiet instrument, I don’t think it was intended for public performance.
The recorder really sank into the background when the transverse flute, with it's greater dynamic capability, came into it’s own; and the poor cornetto and it's dubious intonation (except in the hands of the most skilled) was eventually passed over for the violin. (Also, the plague wiped-out a significant number of cornett players in the early 1600’s!)
If certain renaissance motets or madrigals, for example, or some intimate Marin Marais played by viola da gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall can bring us to tears, and some early baroque "stylus fantasticus" (Schmelzer!, Biber, Farina, etc.) wow and amaze you with their constant changes of tempo and varying dynamics… how can it be said one period of music is "more than”, or that another one "doesn't contain" a certain musical element?
Musical rhetoric/ "the art of delivery" (and more) was part & parcel of Baroque music. You'll discover the performer was expected to improvise ("spontaneously compose") on the written *roadmap* of sheet music, and also every bit as much trained to squeeze out emotion through their instrument in order to convey the passion of the moment to the audience (much as a skilled orator, once upon a time, was trained to affect a sympathetic audience).
Last, the art of variation/ "divisions", and embellishments in general, in certain Renaissance instrumental music will blow your mind. Google/ Youtube Bruce Dickey or Jean Tubery (both virtuoso cornetto players), or "recorder" and "van Eyck". Maurice Steger and Dorothy Oberlinger are just two recorder virtuousos who might have us reevaluating what early instruments are capable of.
HTH!