A synchronous machine comprises a stator and a rotor that faces the stator and rotates on a shaft thereof in a circumferential direction. The rotor has magnetic salient poles that generate reluctance torque and magnet-originating magnetic poles that generate magnet torque by using permanent magnets embedded in the rotor. The machine comprises means for shifting a magnetically substantial central position of magnetic flux emanating from the permanent magnets in the circumferential direction, by an electrical angle π/2 plus a predetermined angle Δθ, from a reference position taken as a central position between paired magnetic salient poles composing each magnetic pole of the machine among the magnetic salient poles. Hence a maximum amplitude of a sum between a harmonic component of the magnet torque and the reluctance torque is changed from that obtained at the reference position without the shift.