George Bernard Shaw slammed it as "despicable oratorio-mongering" and the "prostitution of Mendelssohn's great genius to this lust for threatening and vengeance, doom and wrath".

Others blamed it (unfairly) for inventing religious kitsch in music. Even the conductor Sir Andrew Davis, who returns to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to conduct it this week, shudders when he remembers "the great contraltos of my youth warbling their way through the alto arias with heaps of sticky sentimentality".

Mendelssohn's Elijah. The oratorio was indelibly popular with the Victorians, its rousing choruses, extravagant sweep and sugary, lurid arias making the musical equivalent of turrets on a tenement block. Shaw called it "Mendelssohn's exquisite prettiness" – and that wasn't a complement.

It premiered at the Birmingham Festival in 1846 using English translations of Old Testament texts: this, and the potential for vast bellowing vocal forces, gave the English choral establishment something of a sense of ownership over the work, or at least a hearty affinity. The Three Choirs Festival programmed it every single year from 1847 to 1930. "In England the oratorio has taken its place, if not on a level with The Messiah, very near it," wrote historian George Groves in 1896 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the premiere. "What more does any work of musical art require?"

Mendelssohn modelled it on Handel's oratorios and Bach's passions, music he more-or-less single-handedly recovered from extinction during the first half of the 19th century. He made his subject matter the prophet Elijah and whipped up fervent musical settings around his deeds (raising the dead, shaking fire from the sky, saving the Israelites from worshipping the false god Baal and guiding them back to Yaweh).

Much has been made of the unequivocal Old Testament themes. Mendelssohn was born into a Jewish family but baptised a Lutheran at the age of seven and lived a devout Christian. The extent to which he retained his emotional attachment to Judaism is still a matter of musicological wrangling: his other oratorio, St Paul, recounts Paul's conversion from Judaism to Christianity, but Elijah is by far the more religiously zealous. Who can say whether that zeal came from his Jewish roots or not, but it's what spoke so strongly to the Victorians – and saw the oratorio fall out of fashion during the 20th century.

Nowadays the most appealing performances tend to shine a leaner, cleaner light on Elijah. Last year the period specialist Paul McCreesh made a revelatory recording with the Gabrieli Consort and Players that features spruce, translucent choruses, alert solo singing and not a trace of sanctimony. Although Sir Andrew says he won't be using any particular period techniques when he conducts the RSNO, he agrees what is needed is "restraint and a healthy dose of classicism".

Oh, and the German language. "Elijah was premiered in English, but that was just a translation to suit the Birmingham audience and frankly it doesn't work very well. There are certain places in this piece that are" – Sir Andrew chooses his words carefully – "potentially sentimental. But they're not nearly so dangerously sentimental in German. And in general I think the words of Elijah are simply better wedded to the music in German than they are in English. Some of the scenes just sound ridiculous in English." He breaks into song with a giggle.

Of course there's more to making this piece work than text translation. "Basically, one has to avoid letting the music become cloying," says Sir Andrew. "Mendelssohn's inspiration came from the great choral works of Handel and Bach, and I never lose track of that tradition behind Elijah. Every time I do this piece I remind myself that Mendelssohn had the temperament and fastidiousness of a classicist. Like Goethe in literature, Mendelssohn was a classical composer bursting at the seams with romanticism rather than a romantic composer shackled in old-fashioned formats. And that's how I plan to approach Elijah in a nutshell."

For all his plans to tread carefully, Sir Andrew is unbridled in his affection. "I adore the choruses – such tremendous energy. And so much of it has a grand sweep I find irresistible. Some of the scenes are operatic, but veer between the devotional and dramatic in a way that, if you get it right, is gripping." It just takes a careful hand to bring out the tension and grit, he says. "Take the famous Baal choruses" – he starts to sing again – "which a lot of conductors did with great ferocity. But I find that can be unyielding. For me this scene needs to start off as a chorale with lyrical wind and brass, then becomes more desperate. The scene can be dramatic that way. And of course in German that drama is so much more effective."

The grand choruses, the tranquil arias, the very structure of the work ("whenever you need release you get one of the gentle passages") – all of this Sir Andrew admires. "And then there's Elijah. He's a powerful figure with great fragility that he has to overcome, and I think he spoke strongly to Mendelssohn's own character. In good performances there's a psychological drama that can come alive." Considering Davis's strong history with the RSNO (his Elgar recordings most recently) and the calibre of soloists he's lined up (soprano Lisa Milne, mezzo Catherine Wyn-Rogers, tenor Barry Banks and bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann) this performances have the potential to do just that.

Sir Andrew Davis, the RSNO and RSNO Chorus perform Mendelssohn's Elijah at Edinburgh's Usher Hall on Friday and the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Saturday.