Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Belohlavek, Usher Hall

How Dvorak must have cudgelled his brains in composing the oratorio Saint Ludmila. The work had been commissioned by the Leeds Festival, a pillar of the English choral tradition. But someone had suggested that he write an enormous work in Czech that celebrated the conversion of the Czech nation to Christianity.

Bad idea. The composer sat tight and searched for inspiration. But all that occurred to him were bits of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, popular hymns, snatches of The Magic Flute, "Pop Goes the Weasel" and Handel's "Largo". With a libretto totally devoid of drama – Ludmila, a pagan princess, and a ferocious pagan prince called Borivoj, confronted with a Christian monk, immediately throw in the towel and seek baptism – he sank lugubriously into sentiment and pomposity.

The work is arranged in a series of separate arias and choruses, each more commonplace than the last. When the pagans recognise Christian truth, the chorus goes off into a snappy little polka from Die Fledermaus. There was really no redemption for this stuff.

It was another bad idea to mount a performance of this piece for the closing concert of the Edinburgh Festival in the Usher Hall, and a final killer to do it in Czech (the Leeds choir of 1886 would have sung an English translation). This had the effect of removing all the bloom from the choral tone; the Festival Chorus overshot themselves in attempting this difficult language and sounded out of tune and vague, their Handelian counterpoint lumbering and earth-bound.

The other effect of this decision was to limit the soloists to native Czech-speakers. The glutinous soprano Eva Urbanova made Ludmila sound like a tedious figure whose religious self-satisfaction, expressed in lamentable parlour-tunes, made no discrimination between pagan and Christian. The mezzo, Dagmar Peckova, appeared static and monochrome. The small part of Rolnik was sung by an apprentice tenor, Ales Briscein. There are some first-rate Czech artists, but where were they?

The male principals were better. There was a light, bright tenor, Peter Straka, though he sounded metrical and score-bound. Best of all was Peter Mikulas as the holy man Ivan. He had colour and warmth, a sympathetic and benign figure.

Jiri Belohlavek ought to have been the man to get this work off the ground, but the Royal Scottish National Orchestra were obviously bored. There were some pleasing evocations – the opening portrayal of dawn; a final chorus in the style of an ancient dance – but every moment of swing sank into ponderousness. The English choral tradition, when not producing masterpieces, was fatally attracted to clammy Victorian sentiment. Saint Ludmila flies up to heaven in a cloud of faded lace curtains, smoky drawing rooms and aspidistras.