The following method for integrating the Cauchy problem for a Toda lattice on the half-line is well known: to a solution u(t), t ∈ [0, ∞), of the problem, one assigns a self-adjoint semiinfinite Jacobi matrix J(t) whose spectral measure dρ(λ; t) undergoes simple evolution in time t. The solution of the Cauchy problem goes as follows. One writes out the spectral measure dρ(λ; 0) for the initial value u(0) of the solution and the corresponding Jacobi matrix J(0) and then computes the time evolution dρ(λ; t) of this measure. Using the solution of the inverse spectral problem, one reconstructs the Jacobi matrix J(t) from dρ(λ; t) and hence finds the desired solution u(t).In the present paper, this approach is generalized to the case in which the role of J(t) is played by a block Jacobi matrix generating a normal operator in the orthogonal sum of finite-dimensional spaces with spectral measure dρ(ζ; t) defined on the complex plane. Some recent results on the spectral theory of these normal operators permit one to use the integration method described above for a rather wide class of differential-difference nonlinear equations replacing the Toda lattice.To integrate the Cauchy problem with respect to time t for the nonlinear Korteweg-de Vries equation, there exists a well-known inverse spectral problem method for the self-adjoint SturmLiouville equation on the half-line. This method was put forward and developed in the classical papers by I. M. Gelfand, B. M. Levitan, V. A. Marchenko, and M. G. Krein (for its presentation, see [1]). Using some results for a finite Toda lattice (see [2], [3]), one of the authors [4]-[6]suggested a similar integration method for the Cauchy problem with respect to t in the case of a nonlinear difference equation, a half-infinite Toda lattice, on the basis of the simpler spectral theory for the difference analog of the Sturm-Liouville equation, a semi-infinite self-adjoint Jacobi matrix. We point out that in both cases use was made of self-adjoint operators.The main objective of the present paper is to show that a similar integration theory for the corresponding classes of nonlinear difference equations can be developed on the basis of the recently constructed spectral theory of normal semi-infinite Jacobi matrices (see [7], [8]). In this approach, there necessarily arise matrix (non-Abelian) nonlinear equations; this is related to the stringent property that normal tridiagonal matrices are necessarily matrices of block Jacobi structure with (as a rule) increasing finite dimensions of the blocks rather than to the desire for generalizations.We now give some remarks on the spectral theory of block self-adjoint Jacobi matrices. This theory was created under the influence of the note [9] by M. G. Krein, published in 1949. In particular, it was developed in [10]-[12] and found application in the integration of the Cauchy problem for some classes of matrix difference equations [13]- [16]. (Spectral results of some type that are related to the general block Jacobi matrices and developed in [17]...