A watch almost thirty years in the making, Vianney Halter’s La Resonance is a piece of breathtaking technical sophistication and infinitesimally precise calibration from one of the most revered and eccentric masters of contemporary independent watchmaking, and one which captures the elusive phenomenon of true acoustic resonance in a quite exceptional piece of artisanal haute horlogerie.

Already intrigued by the work on resonance by Dutch scientist and mathematician Christiaan Huygens and the creations of Abraham-Louis Breguet and Antide Janvier, the young watchmaker’s epiphany came while tuning his piano in 1996, when he observed how when the hammer struck one string in a particular note, the others in the same key would begin to vibrate in unison, and so began the project which would eventually consume thousands of hours across years of experimentation, revisiting it from time to time, as he gradually inched ever closer to a solution.

Halter’s breakthrough came when he discovered, after mounting two identical Russian ship’s chronometer movements back to back on a brass plate, with their balances positioned immediately opposing each other, connected only via a shared axis, that even when both started off oscillating remotely of each other, they would always quickly synchronise and begin to beat in an identical rhythm, which he found could be either expanding and contracting in unison, or in a perfect alternation, depending on their relative positions when starting. He realised that at last, he had harnessed the mystical quirk of resonance.

Recreating his experiment in miniature, and within the confines of a watch case however, would take a lot more development and refinement. First appearing in the 2021 Deep Space Resonance, where the two balances created the heartbeat at the centre of a triple axis tourbillon, La Resonance distilled the concept into its purest expression in 2022.

Manufactured in Grade 5 titanium, and measuring 39mm across and 11mm tall, the rounded case features a curved crystal panel, which provides a side-on perspective of the remarkable phenomenon in action, as well as the astonishingly beautiful detail of the pillars which support the architecture of the mechanism within.

Whether viewed from above or below, the in-house designed, developed and manufactured manual winding movement is fully exposed thanks to a completely openworked dial and a sapphire crystal caseback. Blued steel hands indicate the hours, minutes and seconds, while the hour indices extend inwards from the edge of the stripped back dial and hover over the movement below, meaning that from every angle, with the skeletonised bridges and a cascade of large, toothed gear wheels, every detail can be appreciated in a spectacular three dimensional display of mechanical art.

Wound via the crown at the nine o’clock position, two barrels provide energy to a differential in the centre of the mechanism, which in turn delivers a stable supply to the two regulating organs, which are visible at the three. Beating at 21,600 vib/h (3Hz) the movement has an impressive power reserve of circa 100 hours.

Each La Resonance is individually manufactured using a combination of state of the art technology and traditional hand finishing, and production is capped at seven examples a year.

A truly wonderful piece of technical complexity and meticulous craftsmanship from one of the most talented watchmakers of our generation, La Resonance is offered on the customer’s choice of leather strap and has a titanium folding clasp.