Thank you for the opportunity to launch this latest in the "Treasures in Sound" series.

We're so fortunate to have the Turnbull and National Libraries as our storehouse of taonga.

"Oscar Natzka: The Definitive Collection" is just the latest example of what lies concealed, waiting to be revealed to new generations of devotees.

These things don't just happen. This collection is the result of seven years' labour by, among others, Peter Downes, former manager of the National Programme now National Radio and Wayne Laird of Atoll Records.

Fair to say the name Oscar Natzka is not all that familiar to today's generation. But he was a household name to my parents' generation, a New Zealander with an exotic name making it big on the international scene until his untimely death at the age of 39 in 1951.

Artists like him help contribute to our sense of who we are.

I 'm told a child asked once, whether this singer was really a Kiwi with a name like that. He certainly was. Born on a remote farm in the Waikato, lived on Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf for a time: his German-born father died when he was 10. Obliged to leave school at 15 with the Depression looming he worked as a roading labourer on the island before being apprenticed to a blacksmith in Freeman's Bay, Auckland.

In his late teens and already physically impressive, Oscar developed his stamina, strength and lung capacity, so necessary for a singer, through his labours at the forge.

The booklet that goes with this CD collection tells us Oscar made his public debut on July 27 1932 at a Community Sing entertainment at the Auckland Town Hall in aid of the unemployment relief fund.

Two years later Andersen Tyrer from the the London Trinity College of Music auditioned him and arranged a three-year scholarship. To get him to England and provide for his living expenses a group of New Zealand business people contributed more than one thousand pounds-a sum the singer eventually repaid in full.

Oscar kept his family and benefactors in touch with his progress and made two private recordings in 1938 to show his improvement. These are included in Volume One of this collection.

He made his operatic debut at Covent Garden in 1938 and after the war was contracted as principal bass.

Interesting to note he had an unsuccessful audition with the New York Met because they'd taken on Ezio Pinza -"That nearly was his", to paraphrase.

He ranks alongside the likes of Fyodor Chaliapin and Boris Christoff. Alongside opera appearances was a constant round of recitals and concerts throughout North America and a return tour of New Zealand and Australia in 1949.

Tragically he died from a brain haemorrhage in 1951 while appearing in Die Meistersinger in New York.

But his name and his voice has lived on, thanks to institutions like National Radio and Concert FM. (I doubt Oscar would be heard on the commercial stations.) I can hear him now descending into his boots in the Drinking song.

With this collection of all his commercial recordings and more, he will receive further recognition for his magnificent deep voice.

Not long ago we celebrated NZ Music week. This new CD collection will enhance such weeks for many years to come.

I never ceased to be amazed what's in our collections in our libraries here. A fortuitous find in the Turnbull collection put the icing on the cake for this treasured compilation.

The name Natzka was spotted in the Nola Luxford collection being processed by Sarah Bartel. Nola Luxford, many of you will be aware, was a New Zealand-born actress, broadcaster and journalist who'd made her home in the United States in the early thirties.

She included interviews with New Zealanders visiting New York on her regular radio programmes, including Oscar Natzka.
The Oral History disc at the Turnbull was Now is the Hour. Oscar had never made a commercial recording of this song.

When this gem was discovered 72 tracks had been assembled for the Definitive Collection. Room had to be found to accommodate the 73rd. It was added literally at the last minute. What timing!

And now the Definitive Collection is truly definitive. What else I wonder is lurking out there?

Thank you to Oscar's family, Winifred Coburn and son Robert Naska; to all those who have been asociated with this compilation. The joy and pleasure of such talent lives on.