Watches

Watch of the Week: Blancpain Grande Double Sonnerie

With more than 1,000 components and a four-note chime composed by rock-drumming royalty, Blancpain’s latest is the most complex watch the Swiss manufacture has ever created…

Words: Jonathan Wells

Eric Singer has always embraced spectacle. The rock drummer — who has previously played with Kiss, Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper — once brought entire arenas to a standstill with his trademark “flaming mallets” routine, beating out solos with sticks literally on fire. But Singer’s latest gig, with Blancpain, saw him playing with hammers of a different kind.

A long-time friend of brand president and CEO Marc A. Hayek, Singer was invited to compose a four-note melody for Blancpain’s new Grande Double Sonnerie, the single most complicated watch Blancpain has ever built. But this, in its own way, was a creative constraint far more demanding than any stadium show.

One of four 'hammers' used to strike out the melody

“When the Blancpain team shared with me the technical specifications of the watch, I didn’t understand a single word of what was in there,” Singer admits. “What really turned out to be a challenge was realising there were only four notes available — E, G, F, B. That might sound like a lot for a watch, but for a musician, it’s an immense limitation.”

Yet the percussionist prevailed. His original composition, titled simply “Blancpain” (which you can hear below), sits alongside the classic “Westminster” chime as one of two available melodies, which you switch by pressing a pusher on the red or white gold case. Each note is struck by one of four independent hammers, and a gold acoustic membrane built into the bezel amplifies volume — one of the watch’s 13 patented innovations.

Because tempo matters — especially to a drummer — the Grande Double Sonnerie is also equipped with a regulator to govern the pace of the chiming. Yet another of the patented components, this regulator is magnetic, which ensures stability of tempo without introducing any additional mechanical noise.

But Blancpain didn’t stop at musical mastery. This new creation folds its double-melody grande sonnerie, petite sonnerie and minute repeater into a movement that also features a flying tourbillon and a retrograde perpetual calendar. The numbers behind its development are staggering: eight years of research, 1,200 technical drawings, 1,116 components, 21 patents, and five integrated safety systems designed to protect one of the most delicate complications in all of modern horology.

The artistry, too, is just as ambitious as the engineering. The movement’s 26 bridges and mainplate are both crafted from 18-carat gold, with finishing carried out entirely by hand in Blancpain’s Le Brassus workshop. Among these decorative touches, you'll find four sizes of perlage, diamond milling, mirror polishing, straight graining and ‘anglage’ — the inward bevelling of 135 angles. True to the watchmaker’s attention to detail, even hidden components have been embellished.

“The Grande Sonnerie is one of the most difficult complications to create,” says CEO Hayek of the creation. “It is the queen of watchmaking complications. I wanted a Grande Sonnerie that the owner could comfortably wear. Not an exercise that would merely reside in a safe. Two melodies with real musicality. And above all a watch that would make you smile as it sounds the time, that would trigger real emotion.

“With the elaborate sonnerie opened for view, to be admired as its four hammers sound its melodies, a gorgeous gold movement bursting with the innovations of its 13 incorporated patents and finishing taken to the maximum, we hope to touch the hearts of the most passionate connoisseurs.”

Those connoisseurs will also be able to customise their watches — with personalised melodies even a possibility. But it’ll come at a cost. Only two Grande Double Sonnerie models will be made annually, each with a price tag of CHF 1.7 million (or £1.6 million). This does, however, include a special presentation box built using wood sourced from the legendary Risoud forest in the Vallée de Joux, it’s crafted from resonant spruce, prized by luthiers for its unrivalled acoustic qualities.

It’s a neat detail, and brings things full sonorous circle back to Singer: reminding us that he was just one of hundreds of artists and artisans who helped realise this most musical milestone in Blancpain history.