When you regularly reach the peaks, it's difficult to discern the one that stands out, slightly higher than the others. Thus, neither the minute repeater nor the perpetual calendar is unusual at A. Lange & Söhne. Although the manufacture produces them in very small quantities - a few dozen per year - they are complications in the regular collection. Therefore, one must know how to read between the lines to see... what is not apparent at first glance.
The creation of a new movement is part of what the uninitiated enthusiast will not see. Especially if the dial does not truly change from the usual standards of the house. A subtlety reinforced at A. Lange & Söhne by an assumed minimalism: far from flashy designs and exuberant dials, the brand cultivates a purity that hides its game well - and its movement.
Deliveries in Dribs and Drabs
Yet, today the first examples of the new Perpetual Minute Repeater arrive in the boutique. Certainly, the minute repeater already existed (notably in the Zeitwerk), and the perpetual calendar too (in nearly all collections: Richard Lange, Tourbograph, Datograph, Lange 1, and 1815). But the union of the two complications is almost unprecedented: until now, only the 1815 Grand Complication had brought them together. With the Perpetual Minute Repeater, the Glashütte manufacture affirms its intention to maintain this pairing long-term in its collections. This is why a new movement is dedicated to it.
At first glance, one might wonder why the new Perpetual Minute Repeater does not reuse the movement of its predecessor, the 1815 Grand Complication. The answer is simple: the latter certainly had a minute repeater and a perpetual calendar in its movement... but also a small and a large striking mechanism, as well as a chronograph. It is difficult, under these conditions, to simply extract two complications and leave all the others aside, because all A. Lange & Söhne movements are integrated. As such, they are never composed of modules assembled together. The movement is, on the contrary, a unique, coherent, homogeneous whole where each complication is finely interfaced with the entire caliber. Like a puzzle from which you couldn't remove two pieces without altering the entire image. The development of a new caliber, known as L122.2, was therefore a necessity.
Mechanical Subtleties
This one has some subtleties. Like all minute repeaters, it chimes the hours (low note), the quarters (double note), and the minutes (high note). But a gap might occur if the chimed time doesn't include a quarter, like at 11:05. To avoid a gap between "11" and "05," the manufacture developed a system that allows jumping directly from the hours to the minutes by "skipping" the invisible quarters, without a pause. The technique is known - it's been long used by Jaeger-LeCoultre - but it's a first in series for A. Lange & Söhne.
Another subtlety: the patented hammer locking mechanism, which locks them in their starting position for a second, just after hitting the gongs. This safety feature prevents them from rebounding and mistakenly striking the gongs again. A precaution among others that raises the number of components solely dedicated to the minute repeater to 194, out of a total of 640 within the L122.2 caliber.
Finally, let's recall the specificity of the Glashütte manufacture: each caliber, complicated or not, is entirely assembled, tested, then disassembled and assembled a second time, before being delivered. One of the reasons why A. Lange & Söhne will be able to produce only 50 examples of its Perpetual Minute Repeater, between 2025 and 2026, for a price "on request" but which should approach 700,000 CHF. The price of excellence.
