Blending the traditional with the unexpected, Blancpain has introduced a two-melody grande sonnerie watch that plays the classic Westminster chimes and an original composition by Eric Singer, drummer of the hard rock band KISS.
Blancpain has introduced its most complicated watch to date with a surprising twist. The watch is the product of eight years of development, but the length of time to bring the timepiece to fruition did not deter the brand. President and CEO Marc A. Hayek’s “love for mechanics drove him to find and create the unexpected,” Blancpain said in a statement. For this new watch, Hayek asked that the watchmakers craft a grand sonnerie with four musical notes, instead of the usual two. The watch also has a flying tourbillon and a retrograde perpetual calendar, true mechanical feats in their own right. The Grande Double Sonnerie is crafted of 1,116 individual components, 1,053 of which are components for the movement. Every component is entirely crafted in-house by Blancpain’s watchmaking team.
The watch would certainly fit the bill of being unexpected with its four distinct notes alone. But Hayek’s choice of a hard rock drummer to craft an original melody is notable, to say the least. But Singer, who has played for a total of about 33 years with KISS, is actually a close friend of Hayek’s and a passionate watch collector. When Hayek decided to “open a new frontier” in watchmaking, Singer was the natural choice, according to the brand. The drummer collaborated with the renowned metal keyboardist Derek Sherinian to craft the original melody, which is called “Blancpain.” “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 said jokingly.
High Technology
“What really turned out to be a challenge was realizing there were only four notes available. That might sound like a lot for a watch, but for a musician, it’s an immense limitation,” Singer said. Turning that constraint into music was the real puzzle, and also what made this collaboration so fascinating for me and Derek.” Singer’s new melody is “a unique musical signature” for the timepiece.
Singer’s new melody is “a unique musical signature” for the timepiece. In addition to its outstanding chiming, the new Grande Double Sonnerie is equipped with a flying tourbillon mechanism, which the brand first introduced in its timepieces in 1989. The watch also features a perpetual calendar with a retrograde display.
Four Notes
The watch’s four gong hammers, which strike an acoustic membrane integrated into the watch’s bezel to create their distinct melodies, can be seen in motion from the dial side due to the timepiece’s open architecture. The four notes—B, E, F and G—are chimed in specific sequences to form the melodies. The wearer can switch easily between the two tunes via a pusher on the case.
The Grande Double Sonnerie is the most complicated watch that Blancpain has ever produced, and given that the brand was originally founded 290 years ago in 1735, that’s quite the achievement. And Hayek is clearly pleased. “Listening to a sonnerie is like tasting a grand wine. It is not merely a question of volume, but the clarity, the resonance, the persistence, the richness,” he said. “Savoring the sounding of a prestige sonnerie is an emotional experience.” And whoever purchases this watch will certainly feel emotion, at least a test of patience as well. With a production limited to just two watches per year, it may be a long wait.