Blancpain, for those who listen before they look

Some watches you look at. A few you listen to. On the night of the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève, Blancpain won the Mechanical Exception Prize with one of the few modern watches I would rather hear than see.

It is called the Grande Double Sonnerie. The name is honest. It is a grande sonnerie, the most demanding of all chiming complications, and it is double because it can play two different melodies. You choose between the classic Westminster chime and an original composition written for the watch by the musician Eric Singer.

According to Blancpain, no wristwatch grande sonnerie has offered two selectable melodies before. I believe them, because the numbers behind it are almost absurd.

The watch in numbers that matter

Eight years of development. Twenty-one patents filed along the way, thirteen of them used in the final movement. And 1,053 components, all designed, produced, decorated and assembled in-house.

The chiming is only half of it. The same movement carries a petite sonnerie, a minute repeater, a retrograde perpetual calendar and a flying tourbillon. In watchmaking we call that a grand complication. I would call it a small cathedral.

If the terms are new to you, here is the short version. A minute repeater chimes the time when you ask for it. A grande sonnerie does it on its own, striking the hours and the quarters as they pass, like a church tower on your wrist. A petite sonnerie is the quieter mode, striking only the quarters, with the hours at the top of each hour.

A house that refused to forget

To understand why this watch comes from Blancpain, you have to go back to 1735. That year, Jehan-Jacques Blancpain registered as a watchmaker in Villeret, in the Swiss Jura. The brand still builds its whole identity on that date.

The modern story is just as good. In the 1950s Blancpain gave the world the Fifty Fathoms, one of the first true diving watches, made in 1953 for military divers. Then came the quartz crisis, and the name nearly disappeared.

In the early 1980s Jean-Claude Biver and Jacques Piguet bought the Blancpain name and relaunched it with a provocation that became a legend. Since 1735, they said, there had never been a quartz Blancpain, and there never would be. In an industry that was racing towards batteries, they bet everything on mechanical watchmaking.

The Grande Double Sonnerie is that bet, paid out forty years later.

Curious facts

• Blancpain describes it as the first wristwatch grande sonnerie with two melodies you can select.
• The second melody is not a classical piece. It was composed for this watch by Eric Singer.
• Only thirteen of the twenty-one patents made it into the final calibre. The other eight were the price of getting there.
• The movement has 1,053 parts. Most automatic watches I wear daily have fewer than 250.

Where to see Blancpain in Portugal

Blancpain is represented in Portugal by Tempus Internacional and sold through Boutique dos Relógios Plus. In Lisbon, the stores on Avenida da Liberdade, at number 129 and at 194C, are where I would start. There are also stores in Amoreiras and Colombo, in CascaiShopping, at Quinta Shopping in Quinta do Lago, and in Porto on Avenida dos Aliados and at NorteShopping.

I spent two years working with the Boutique dos Relógios team on campaigns and film, so I will say this plainly. A watch like the Grande Double Sonnerie never sits in a window. It is a conversation, usually one that starts months before anyone sees the piece. If you are serious, ask for the Blancpain brand contact at the Avenida da Liberdade store and start there.

My take

I think the GPHG jury got this one right. Most grand complications today are built to be photographed. This one was built to be heard, and that is a far more personal kind of luxury. You cannot share a chime on Instagram in any meaningful way. You have to be in the room.

What I admire most is the second melody. A Westminster chime connects you to every clock tower in Europe. A new composition connects you to the people who made your watch. Having both, and choosing between them, feels like the right answer to the question every old house faces: how do you honour tradition without becoming a museum?

Blancpain has answered it with a melody. For those who listen before they look, this is the watch of the year.