Name: Christopher Ward C1 Bel Canto Classic
Brand: Christopher Ward
SKU: SKUDUqvmd0swR
Availability: InStock

What’s old is new thanks to Bel Canto Classic, a remarkable second iteration of Christopher Ward’s critically acclaimed ‘Sonnerie au Passage’ hit, which turned the watch world on its head and won the ‘Petite Aiguille’ prize at the GPHG Awards. It still sounds a glorious chime on the turn of each hour, but boasts a fresh retro feel, with Roman numerals and an innovative guilloché face.

Chime machine

The Bel Canto Classic is the second open-series version of the remarkable C1 Bel Canto, designed to sit alongside the original, but offering a decidedly different flavour: more intricate, more traditional, more, well, ‘classic’.

Check out the new box sapphire crystal, giving a charming three-dimensional vintage vibe; those elegant Roman numerals on the time-telling sub-dial; and – perhaps most strikingly – the old-school luxury of its guilloché-finished face. The sophisticated period feel continues through a range of subtly improved straps and bracelets, while the feast for your ears is as lovely as ever.

Named after one of the most lyrical styles of opera – it means ‘beautiful song’ in Italian – any Bel Canto is a genuine haute horlogerie piece, and as such boasts a divine level of finishing. But with the Bel Canto Classic, we’ve upped our game yet again. Not only has the remarkable original concept been revamped to feel traditional – thanks to a more classically styled time-telling dial and a simpler, no-lume handset – but the spectacular guilloché finish to the face gives it a whole new level of visual panache. The colours are special, too: for the first time in an open-series Bel Canto, you can enjoy the Azzurro and Verde of the original limited editions, as well as a new Argento and Oro.

From the first, Bel Canto was designed to showcase both visual and aural beauty, a watch that would chime on the hour, every hour, but would also be visually intriguing while doing so. The secret to this was to showcase the striking mechanism across the entire bottom half of the face. Over each hour, the bird tail chiming ‘hammer’ draws almost imperceptibly back, until it’s released to strike the steel spring which curves around the edge of the dial.

This is possible thanks only to the FS01 movement, an in-house calibre created by CW’s technical director Frank Seltzer. Frank adapted our ‘jumping hour’ movement (Calibre JJ01) into a striking mechanism by adding more than 60 new components.

Frank and our design team worked tirelessly to refine both the aesthetics and sound of the watch. For example, over 80 different springs and hammers of different materials, lengths and shapes were tested (and rejected) before the sought-after ‘beautiful singing’ chime in the key of D was achieved.

As with the original Bel Canto, the bridge-and-hammer mechanism on the dial resembles a songbird. Should you wish to silence the chime, a button at 4 o’clock can be set to the ‘on’ or ‘off’ position, while ringing status is indicated by a small red arrow – the songbird’s ‘beak’ – next to the button.

We’re immensely proud of Bel Canto – in its original and Classic iterations, and of the hoops we’ve had to jump through to make it possible. If Christopher Ward’s mission is to make the highest level of watchmaking truly accessible to all, then with the Bel Canto Classic we’ve rarely sung a sweeter song.

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FS01 chiming movement

Created by CW’s technical director Frank Seltzer, Calibre FS01 is an ingenious modified movement with Christopher Ward’s DNA in every cog and spring. With an inspired piece of lateral thinking, Frank realised that CW’s ‘jumping hour’ movement could be adapted to create a chiming sound on the hour, every hour. More than 60 new components form the striking mechanism module which sits atop a Sellita SW200-1 base movement which provides the 38-hour power reserve.

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What the press say about theC1 Bel Canto

Teddy Baldassarre

“Across the board, I think this is ingenuity at its finest and to the highest degree that I have seen in quite some time in watchmaking.”
– Teddy Baldassarre

“This watch is a masterpiece.”
– Andrew Morgan

“What the chime does best is break the monotony of the day. One day I found myself frustrated, dealing with some asinine and already-forgotten issue. Then a light ‘ding’ resonated from my wrist and put a smile on my face.”
– Mark Kauzlarich

FS01’s ‘beautiful song’

An extrapolation of Christopher Ward’s celebrated JJ01 ‘jumping hour’ movement, Calibre FS01 creates a gorgeous chiming sound on the hour, every hour thanks to a gorgeous U-shaped gong that doubles back on itself around the rim of the face, and a bird-shaped hammer mechanism, where the beak indicates whether the complication is on or off, and the tail strikes to make the sound.

Swell decoration

Advanced ‘femto’ lasers render Bel Canto Classic’s striking guilloché finish in three dimensions – an innovative technique that creates a far more detailed and intricate surface than a punched guilloché ever could. A bonus comes in the way it’s now possible to experiment with hitherto-impossible effects, so the repeating pattern can now get smaller and more intricate on certain portions of the face.

Classic – in every way possible

Bel Canto is no longer just a single watch, but an entire collection – the Classic taking the original’s retro-futuristic style and dialling up the vintage side of things significantly. This is still ‘the watch that changed everything’, but with a new style that brings traditional luxury aesthetics to the innovative engineering that makes it all possible.

Time flies

With much of the face given up to key mechanical parts in a glorious open-worked style, Bel Canto relies for its time-telling on a smaller subdial that ‘floats’ over the face, the base-layer disc a watch like this has in place of a traditional dial. It all gives a fascinating feeling of depth, while the elegant simplicity of Roman numerals and a new, restrained handset emphasise the Classic’s old-school refinement.

A case designed for sound

Christopher Ward’s famous Light-catcher™ case has proved to be one of our most crucial, versatile signatures, and with Bel Canto it’s had a subtle makeover to help it best reverberate with sound. The first ever CW case to be made from Grade 5 titanium – less dense than steel, so it amplifies the chime – it’s been optimised inside and out to produce the most pleasing possible ‘ting’.

Strong finish

Open-worked watches like Bel Canto feature fascinating multi-layered architecture, so some components exist below the coloured face, while others are displayed proudly above it – not least the vital hammer, the gong, and the bridges that support them. All are, of course, exquisitely polished by some of Switzerland’s finest finishers.

Sleeping beauty

A most welcome companion during the day, Bel Canto’s chimes may prove less than ideal when, say, you’re trying to snooze. That’s why the songbird can easily be sent to sleep: a simple press of the pusher at 4 o’clock moves the beak from chirpy to slumbering, temporarily disabling the watch’s key virtue.

Box clever

A box sapphire crystal, unique to the Bel Canto’s Classic, reproduces much of the charming look and feel of vintage acrylic crystals, while retaining all the scratch-resistance of sapphire. It even visually slims the watch slightly, too: win-win (and, indeed, win).