Tonhalle, Concert hall in Zürich, Switzerland

The Tonhalle is a concert hall in the Kongresshaus complex in central Zurich, near the lake and Bürkliplatz, not on the waterfront promenade itself. It holds two halls: the Grosser Saal with 1,430 seats (816 in the stalls, 614 in the gallery and balcony) and the Kleine Tonhalle with 609 seats. The 1939 replacement building by Haefeli Moser Steiger kept the inner hall and the north-east façade.

The hall opened in 1895 with performances led by conductor Friedrich Hegar and attended by composer Johannes Brahms. It was designed with reference to major European concert halls of the time and is now listed as a cultural property of national importance in Switzerland.

The Grosser Saal is nicknamed the "Trocadéro" of Zurich because its exterior resembled the Trocadéro Palace in Paris. The Tonhalle-Orchester's concert life grew out of the city's bourgeois music societies, which united in 1812 as the Allgemeine Musik-Gesellschaft; the men's choir Sängerverein Harmonie (1841) and the Gemischter Chor Zürich (1863) pushed for a permanent hall.

The Tonhalle occupies the Kongresshaus complex at Claridenstrasse 7, in the city centre near Bürkliplatz and the lake, not on the waterfront promenade itself. The Grosser Saal seats 1,430 and the Kleine Tonhalle 609. A renovation replaced the Kleuker-Steinmeyer organ with a Kuhn instrument in 2021.

Brahms himself performed at the Tonhalle's opening in 1895, lending his personal reputation to the new venue from the very start. It turned out to be one of his last public appearances, as he died the following year.