With every bit of regrettable news, a brighter update can often emerge to save the day. In the case of A. Lange & Sohne’s beautiful rectangular watch, the Cabaret, “the show” came to an end some time ago. This model loss in the Lange catalog always seemed a shame to me, however understandable it may have been from a business perspective. Rectangular watches, after all, are a rare, if less appreciated breed in modern times–but this one was stunning. The glamorous Cabaret bucked the trend of round watches both within and beyond Lange’s outstanding catalog, and was a daring, dashing, and provocative challenger against established offerings from revered Swiss watchmaking houses like Jaeger-LeCoultre with the Reverso, and exceptional houses of jewelry who also happened to make fine watches, such as Cartier and their iconic Tank. But alas, the Cabaret, despite gaining a few acclaimed variants like a beautiful Moonphase iteration, proved a slow seller in the original Lange lineup, and was dropped in favor of continued development on the 1815, Lange 1, Datograph, and other hard hitting model families.
Still, before the final curtain, Lange brought out its ultimate Cabaret iteration–one fitted with an exceptional tourbillon caliber in 2008, and this watch continued in production for five years. Fast forward to 2021, and the Cabaret Tourbillon is back, and what a reissue it is! A. Lange & Sohne applies the Handwerkskunst designation to a tiny handful of models for very limited production, that showcase the absolute highest, no holds barred, levels of craftsmanship the brand is capable of. Of course, every A. Lange watch is a masterpiece of watchmaking and craft, but these special models take things even further, and this Cabaret Tourbillon lives up to every expectation one might have of something like this…as if the original model wasn’t impressive enough.
Starting with the 26.5mm wide by x 39.2mm tall platinum case, we have a very exclusive material, and it suits the dial materials and artistry very well, as we’ll explore in a moment. The Cabaret case has always been an extremely intricate iteration of the square/rectangle form, with its stepped bezel and subtle yet strong lugs that flare every so slightly away from the contrastingly brushed caseband. This is not a case for mass production, and handling one, or even seeing a good quality image, should tell you that the creation process is, and was, very costly. The dial, with its muted silver and grey tones, to say nothing of delectable texture and depth, is where our mouths begin to fall open a little bit, because there is a lot going on there—all very simply and elegantly of course–and we must take a deeper dive to understand just how much handcraft is needed to create this playing field of finely measured time.
A. Lange & Sohne artisans begin with a dial base of white gold, the center of which is entirely carved out by hand with an interlocking series of lozenge (or diamond shaped, if you prefer) motifs, a task which as you may imagine, involves an extraordinarily trained and unhurried engraver’s hand. Additional tasks the engraver also has to achieve here on the Cabaret Tourbillon include a tremblage section around the tiny periphery of the diamond-within-diamond section, and a grained pattern on the black rhodiumized outer area in which the gold Roman numerals are applied. Let’s backtrack to that tremblage aspect again, just to focus on one technique here, and what difficulty it entails: the engraver, armed with a burin tool, must impress tiny interconnecting dots, not too deep, yet just enough, so as to create a fine stippled texture. Needless to say, a person not possessed of patience–extreme patience?–need not apply. Yet, it only gets harder from here, believe it or not!
After accomplishing all this, the skilled hands at Lange must undertake the most hair-raising element of creating these dials: grand feu enameling. Long considered one of the trickiest handcrafts in making exceptional watches, dials in this type of enamel are difficult enough to produce on simpler dials, from application to kiln firing, all the while hoping the translucence and evenness holds up and survives the literal trial of fire without any cracks. Speaking of those, the odds of cracking are much higher on a dial like this, due to the intricate metal structures around the apertures (for the date windows, tourbillon cage, and second hand and power reserve subdials), which place heightened stress on the already fragile, thin enamel. These tricky obstacles resulted in approximately half of these Cabaret dials requiring things to start from scratch, all over again. Further adding to the nerve-wracking process was an additional final firing cycle–at a somewhat lower temperature–just to fix the brand signature, in a very specific paint, to the enamel base! It seems the powers that be at A. Lange & Sohne were quite relieved that only thirty had to be completed, and that I can absolutely believe. That said, the result of their labor is indeed amazing and lives up to everything the Handwerkskunst designation promises.
As expected, the movement is a match to the glorious dial. L042.1 equals and then builds on the excellence of the one powering the original Cabaret Tourbillon. In terms of technical basics–a long 120 hour power reserve (courtesy of two large mainspring barrels), a hand-crafted, hand-regulated one minute tourbillon mounted on diamond endstones in the manner of the finest Saxon watches, and jewels mounted in gold chatons fixed down with fire-blued screws–they are much the same. Yet this watch does offer some additional refinements over its predecessor. For example, the balance wheel contained within the 60 second “whirlwind” is now freely sprung for superior performance, and as an additional point, shows off Lange’s now in-house manufactured balance spring. And, as superlative as the finish of the first rectangular Lange tourbillon caliber was, this one offers some additional flourishes and differentiators: plates are frosted rather than Glashutte ribbed, and the winding wheels have a circular grained finish that differs slightly from the typical sunburst effect seen on other such Lange components. (And may, may I add, holy smokes are those wheels finished impeccably!) Perhaps most distinctively, the cocks supporting the intermediate drive wheel and tourbillon carriage charmingly show off the same–hand engraved, of course!–lozenge motif that the dial does. Art, craft, and history are all seamlessly joined in the Cabaret Handwerkskunst.
Leave it to A. Lange & Sohne to leave our mouths watering once again. As mentioned, there won’t–and really, can’t–be too many of these. For the thirty who are fortunate enough, the necessarily steep €315,200 asking price for this extraordinary Lange Cabaret is surely just a formality.