The invention provides a motor control apparatus and a motor control method. In a machine tool equipped with a tool motor, a workpiece motor, and a tool shaft movement motor which drives a linear shaft to change an intershaft distance between a tool shaft and a workpiece shaft, the motor control apparatus applies a master/slave synchronization mode to enable the tool motor and the workpiece motor to rotate in a synchronous manner. When a power failure detector detects a power failure of a power supply during synchronous rotation of the tool motor and the workpiece motor, forced deceleration of either one of the tool motor (main shaft) and the workpiece motor (slave shaft) is made to be delayed by a predetermined time, and during that time the tool shaft movement motor is used to drive the linear shaft and separate a tool and a workpiece as a retraction operation to thereby prevent damage to the tool and the workpiece during the power failure.