This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Blancpain unveil complex dual-melody timepiece, in watch-making first
By Tessa Crowley | 27 November 2025 | Design, Style
The new Grande Double Sonnerie watch is Blancpain’s most complex timepiece ever, featuring a new melody penned by rock-royalty Eric Singer
This week Blancpain has released its most complex watch to date, the Grande Double Sonnerie. Created from a seemingly impossible idea and eight years in the making, the watch — in a watchmaking-first — features two distinct, four-note chimes and is today finally a reality.
Conceived by Blancpain’s President & CEO Marc A. Hayek, the timepiece is notable for having pushed Blancpain’s team to develop a unique new complication, one that has advanced the art of watchmaking. Moving from simply sounding time, the goal was to create a complex four-note melody, with a dual-melody timepiece ultimately being the compelling, yet challenging, ambition.
Eight years of toil have finally come to fruition. The newly released Grande Double Sonnerie features the promised dual-melody, each selectable via a pusher on the case. Alongside the classic ‘Westminster’ sound, the second melody was a new creation for Blancpain, composed by none other than acclaimed musician and American rock royalty, drummer Eric Singer. A passionate watch collector, Eric is best known for his long-standing association with KISS, and collaborations with Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper and Brian May, among others.
A close friend of Marc A. Hayek, he was the natural choice to equip the Grande Double Sonnerie with its impressive second melody. He collaborated closely with friend and acclaimed keyboardist Derek Sherinian, whose musical insight and harmonic sense were integral to the final sound.
As Eric explains: “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. Turning that constraint into music was the real puzzle, and also what made this collaboration so fascinating for me and Derek.”
It’s no small feat and, melody aside, as one might expect of such an ambitious undertaking, the Grande Double Sonnerie required hours of work and technical development to be realised. The team created over 1,200 technical drawings and developed 21 patents alone, with 13 being used in the watch’s final construction.
Related: Montblanc unveils Star Legacy Suspended Exo Tourbillon Versailles watch
The watch also encompasses many of Blancpain’s signature design details, updated for this unique iteration and significant moment in its watch-making history. Blancpain’s emblematic flying tourbillon — the world’s first, unveiled in 1989 — has been updated with a silicon balance spring and a 4 Hz frequency, while Blancpain’s retrograde perpetual calendar has been reimagined with a new construction, and the patented under-lug correctors redesigned for easier adjustment without tools.
Related: F1 champion Max Verstappen on the secret behind his winning mentality
The movement features 1,053 components, out of a total of 1,116 components, all entirely designed, produced, assembled, and decorated in-house. The incredible timepiece also boasts Blancpain’s traditional hand-finishing, executed in its finishing workshop in Le Brassus, from perlage and mirror polishing to diamond milling and straight graining, decorated across all surfaces both visible and hidden.
While highly intricate, the Grande Double Sonnerie is still eminently wearable, with its 47mm diameter and 14.5mm thickness. The timepiece is uniquely presented in a stunning wooden box, which doubles as a natural soundboard, amplifying the chime.